Prof Baker would like to see travellers have two rapid tests and spend five days in isolation before coming to New Zealand but the COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says that s too hard. It means we would have to have people around the world overseeing pre-departure quarantine in hundreds of different countries and that s simply not feasible, he says.
Prof Baker says the border is the risk and efforts should be concentrated there. I think we should be focusing much more on the 300 people getting on flights overseas and coming back to New Zealand every day rather than the five million people here because we don t currently have transmission of the virus in the country.