Wellington: New Zealand will shorten the gap between the dose and the second Covid vaccine booster and push the reopening of its border boundaries in the steps announced Tuesday to maintain the omicron variant in the bay.
Response Minister Covid-19 Chris Hipkin told government journalists agreed to “Prevention Action Suite” considering the threats posed by the Omicron strain from Coronavirus.
The gap between the second dose of vaccine and booster will be shortened from six to four months, meaning that 82 percent of New Zealand vaccination will be due to booster in February.
Strict New Zealand border regulations have so far managed to keep omicron spread in society.
The only case reported so far has been in travelers who are in managed and quarantine isolation.
“Community health advice shows that soon each case comes to our border, to our managed isolation facilities, will be an Omicron variant,” Hipkins said.
“We already know that Booster’s vaccination significantly raised individual immunity, reducing the spread and severity of Covid-19.” Plans to allow tourists from Australia to isolate themselves from January 17, instead of being managed isolation, has been pushed back to the end of February.
Hipkins said with the new southern Australian state “now hoping to record 25,000 cases a day at the end of January, opening the border in mid-January as planned only to bring risks that are too high at this time.”