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Comment by perihelions | Hacker News Reader

For some context, here's the current situation for New Zealand citizens attempting to enter New Zealand (according to newspapers -- I'm not from there):

>"The demand is so high, and the supply so scarce, that any rooms that become available disappear within seconds. Dates are released completely randomly and can appear any time of the day or night, and there's no queue."

>"It makes it close to impossible for the average New Zealander to get home," said Chris Ruscoe, currently in Tennessee, about the high demand and the software enabling people to secure rooms so quickly."

>"The difficulty and frustration and desperation that these folks are feeling, including me - who tried for three weeks, 18-plus hours a day and got nowhere."

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/446516/tech-savvy-kiwis-... ("Tech-savvy Kiwis able to use scripts to snap up MIQ spots before others")

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I don't understand, there are barriers of entry into NZ for NZ citizens? What? How, what?

* Entry means extended hotel quarantine

* Limited supply of state-managed quarantine slots

* Additional high friction from the digital application process + people gaming it

(Per the article: signing up isn't a FIFO queue, it's "something shows up on a website & the first entity that clicks it wins")

The limiting factor is managed isolation. You can return if there are flights from where you are currently, but you need to secure a spot in managed isolation first (2 weeks in a hotel). https://www.miq.govt.nz/travel-to-new-zealand/secure-your-pl...

I'd never voluntarily sign up for quarantine and am fortunate to have traveled between three countries in the past year that dont require them. If my home country started requiring quarantine while I was away I'd refuse to go back. What a joke. Im not impressed by their stats, it's not worth it.

It's 2 weeks in a hotel. I've been through it. It's not the end of the world.

Agreed. I did this in December in Thailand and I had no problems. Just come in with a plan to stay busy the two weeks. I was able to work remotely which took up the majority of my time.

I've spent months in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia pre-Covid. I'm very familiar with the nomad spots. I love it there but not worth a quarantine for me. There are tropical beaches and coworking spaces in latin America too.

Over the winter covid case rates were pretty bad in Latin America. Thailand was at less than 100 cases/day, with a large fraction being caught in these quarantine facilities. Thailand seemed like the safer option.

Also it was a 7 week stay, so 2 weeks of quarantine was quite short compared to the duration of the trip.

This is why your home country is likely rampant with covid, where as nz is not.

NZ got step 1 right (isolate) but massively dropped the ball on step 2 (vaccinate ASAP).

NZ, if they continue at current rate, are on track to vaccinate 100% in 51 days. Of course that's never going to happen as not everyone wants the vaccine etc, but it seems their rollout is going well if not slightly delayed.

Australia meanwhile hasn't even vaccinated 5% of the pop as they put all their eggs into a political choice (on-shore produced AstraZeneca, support aussie produced!) and are now scrambling to find a replacement. There's not enough vaccine for demand.

Both took the same isolate approach, but it looks like NZ is gonna come out of this sooner.

Australians I know got Pfizer shots. I don't understand why they did though, none of them are from high risk populations or likely to be the source of spread. And it's not helping them to leave the country either - one of them just had to cancel an NZ trip.

Yeah, there's a supply of Pfizer but it's a drop in the ocean compared to what they committed to AZ. The government declined a deal for Pfizer last year in favour of majority AZ, and has had to renegotiate for Pfizer since. Increased Pfizer supply is due to arrive soon.

> on track to vaccinate 100% in 51 days

I can guarantee you that this is not going to happen... I would be lucky if I am vaccinated this year... Vaccines are super scarce so we are real snails atm!

Your government seems confident they can keep up this pace. I hope they're not overpromising on that front

I am in group 4 (out of 4) and vaccination was supposed to start in July and it has been pushed to end of July. Some people in group 3 have still not been contacted and there are plenty of frontline workers not vaccinated yet. The government is voluntarily vague to protect itself so it is frustrating

As a kiwi who hasn’t seen family in a couple of years (my daughter has never met any family member), quarantine is a possibility.

Sure, nobody is about to have a vacation in NZ voluntarily, but that’s not what we’re discussing here, is it?

In most common law countries (I don't know about the rest of the world) citizens don't actually have a practical right to re-enter their own country. Don't sass customs officers because they can keep you out indefinitely.

Incidentally Australia has suspended citizens' right of reentry altogether,

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56953052

*from India. There's still an international arrival cap of ~3500 people per week, which was just reduced in response to the current outbreak in Sydney (https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/department/media/mr_202103...)

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