New Zealand is likely to keep its border closed to the world through most of 2021 amid uncertainty over the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.
"We can expect our borders to be impacted for much of this year,” Ardern told a news conference Tuesday in Wellington. "We will continue to pursue travel bubbles with Australia and the Pacific, but the rest of the world simply poses too great a risk to our health and our economy to take a risk at this stage.”
New Zealand’s success in combating the virus has allowed it to lift restrictions and get its economy moving again much sooner than initially expected, but the closed border is decimating its tourism industry. While the government today announced it expects to give regulatory approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine next week, Ardern said mass immunization will not begin until midyear and she was taking a "conservative” approach to letting foreigners into the country again.