[nixy]

So what happens as soon as people want to start visiting NZ? Seems like you will forever have to be scared of corona entering your country again, it must be a huge blow long-term to the tourism sector? Not trying to be snarky, genuinely trying to understad the plan.

[Negitivefrags]

The plan is basically that the tourism sector takes a beating and nobody is allowed to come to NZ without a 2 week quarantine. Possibly for years.

Under the theory that NZ citizens can’t go anywhere else, supposedly if all the people who would have gone overseas instead travel internally then it should recover up to 60%. If Australia can get thier shit together then it’s apparently 95%.

I guess it’s just a question of priorities. Most of the NZ population is feeling pretty good about life being normal and are willing to pitch the tourism sector into the fire to that end.

[roca]

NZ tourism spending (excluding international airfares) was ~60% domestic before COVID19. (Yes I know it sounds high, but that's the number.) Shifting outbound tourism to domestic will boost domestic considerably higher than that even without Australia.

[beachy]

There are plenty of questions like that awaiting NZ. Almost 10% of our workforce is (was) in tourism.

But hopefully we have bought time to make measured decisions, and now we do have options, including skulking away until there's a vaccine available.

[bandushrew]

oh, absolutely.

Im fascinated to see how it plays out myself.

The plan for the next couple of months at least seems to be to require a 2-3 week quarantine for people coming into the country, which is definitely going to cause continued harm to the tourism sector.

I think the hope from the govt right now is that a vaccine becomes an option sooner rather than later...there is no guarantee of that even being possible of course, but its looking more hopeful as the data comes in.

OTOH within the country itself, as of right now, we are one of the least-shutdown economies in the world and have lost only 21 people to covid, which is a pretty solid place to be.

The longer we can keep covid out, the better the virus is understood and the more effective the treatments that are available, even without a vaccine.

It seems likely to be true that eventually we will need to shrug and let the virus have its way with our people, with or without a vaccine, but everyone with vulnerable dependents is grateful to have had more time with them, and already the treatment outcomes for covid have improved from 6 weeks ago.

Lives sacrificed by opening up too soon (or never closing) would be lost forever, while the economy is driven by people, and people are endlessly resilient, so the economy will recover.

Was it worth it for the lives saved? Clearly opinions are going to vary, but Im comfortable with the choices our govt has made so far.

[roca]

I think we'll be admitting international students soon, with testing and at least a 14-day quarantine.

We are already admitting film crews for certain TV and film productions, with a 14-day quarantine.

If we can sustain being COVID-free, that makes NZ pretty attractive for those activities.

I don't think we'll be admitting tourists unconditionally until we have vaccinated most of our population. But our tourism sector will probably limp along OK with outbound tourism switching to domestic. Also we will hopefully be opening a "travel bubble" with other countries that have beaten COVID19, probably Australia first.