Andrew Blackman 18 February, 2021, 7:00 pm Papua New Guinea’s Milne Bay youth performers welcoming a cruise ship in 2016. Picture: (Conor Ashleigh/World Bank. By HAMISH WYATT Across the world — including here in the Pacific region — countries are now beginning to look at how to ease travel restrictions that were put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19. As vaccines roll out, international travel begins to resume between Australia and New Zealand and discussions of a Pacific Bubble continue to be floated, it is time to consider how and when the region could reopen. The stakes are high. The travel restrictions that have been in place across the Pacific have been effective, sparing the region from larger coronavirus outbreaks.