- Hon Chris Hipkins
The New Zealand Government acknowledges Western Australia's decision to end its lockdown, with limited restrictions still in place, and will decide on its response tomorrow, Tuesday, after considering further advice from health officials.
Western Australia recorded no new cases of Covid-19 overnight and New Zealand health officials were again in contact with their Australian counterparts today. Our risk assessment remains that the public health risk to New Zealand is low.
Some additional information from Western Australia, however, particularly more results from the additional testing that has been done, are expected to be available tomorrow.
Until then, travel between New Zealand and Western Australia will remain paused.
The first scheduled flight from Western Australia would be scheduled to leave Tuesday night New Zealand time and we are working to be able to confirm our position as soon as possible to give those passengers certainty.
Contact tracing update
Contact tracing for the passengers who arrived in New Zealand on direct flights from Perth on 19, 21 and 23 April is largely completed.
The number of passengers is now confirmed at 664, an update on the early estimate of 1000 provided by the Ministry of Health yesterday.
All but 7 have now been contacted. An update on the two casual contacts in New Zealand potentially linked to the Western Australian cases, and the results of their tests, is expected tomorrow by the Ministry.
