Editorial: Leaders' meeting chance to provide plan for reopening

Jacinda Ardern and Scott Morrison during the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in August 2019. Photo / Jason Walls

Opinion

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's meeting with Australian counterpart Scott Morrison next weekend will be a milestone moment.

The last time the pair met in person was the day the country's first Covid-19 case was announced, Ardern said this month.

The leaders will help showcase Queenstown for the cameras, attending a rugby match there on Sunday, before formal talks next Monday.

As the PMs confer, it feels like only half-time in the dominating issue, the coronavirus pandemic.

From a concise opening few chapters last year, the pandemic in Australasia has become a neverending story.

Morrison has said Australia's borders won't reopen until mid-2022 - a major change from earlier this year when October was the target and more travel bubbles were on the horizon.

"Australians are demonstrating a great deal of patience and the position we have been maintaining is the sensible one," he said. "That doesn't mean we're not planning for when we can do it ... but for now and for some time yet we need to play it safe because that's what protects lives and it's also what protects livelihoods."

As in Australia, there's a lot of public support here for the overwhelming safety of closed borders with the Indian surge reminding the public of the virus' dangers.

At this stage, New Zealand is still hopeful of completing its vaccine programme later this year. Ardern said it is too soon to say whether a significant opening of the borders is likely by January.

Minister Chris Hipkins in interviews emphasises the care being taken with the rollout, that it's a big ask, and the uncertainties around supplies.

Yet the rollout with what supplies we have can be speeded up. Both the medical agencies of the European Union and United States have changed guidelines to say the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine can be stored in a normal fridge for a month, meaning GP clinics and chemists could administer jabs. Pfizer is also working on a new version that "can be stored up to six months" in a fridge, chief executive Albert Bourla told Axios.

Vaccines are about reducing risk of infection rates, serious infection and death from Covid. The World Health Organisation says they have been proved effective against all the known variants.

A quicker rollout here and in Australia could have increased safety and burnished both countries' reputations for coronavirus competence. It could have this year allowed for two largely vaccinated populations to host vaccinated tourists and students, from Covid-19 low-risk nations. That all matters for future Budget spending.

Instead we are attracting notice for being behind. The Economist writes that "Australia and New Zealand cannot hide from Covid-19 forever" and "the countries need a plan for reopening to the world".

Former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer is quoted as saying that Covid can't be completely kept out "unless they want to be isolated from the world until the end of time".

Neither government has provided the detailed public information for reopening that have been common overseas. And the impression created is that it is an either/or equation - closed borders or not - when it should be clear that with vaccines a tiered strategy of restrictions and easings is possible.

The upcoming meeting would be a good opportunity to provide us with detail.