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Comment by johnnyApplePRNG | Hacker News Reader

>"New Zealanders stranded overseas who are desperate to get home deserve answers."

Is New Zealand not even allowing their own citizens to return to their home country?

Either way, as rich as he is; allowing a sick child to enter any country for emergency medical treatment is always the right thing to do in my books.

The whole point of the covid restrictions is to save lives, and they could very well have just save his son's life for all we know.

I am sure that the medevac paramedics and the hospital he was treated in took all of the right precautions to prevent him from spreading covid in New Zealand.

I hope his son is better now.

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> Is New Zealand not even allowing their own citizens to return to their home country?

Only the rich ones, same for Australia. At least NZ is still letting people leave the country. The behaviour of both countries during this has put them near the bottom of the list for places I'd ever want to go to.

If New Zealand is like Australia, I wouldn't say it's only for the rich ones but you do need to be middle class because the flight costs + hotel costs are obscene. But you don't need to be a millionaire or a celebrity or anything like that.

I'm a NZ citizen living overseas and it's currently impossible to fly home over the new year because of limited mandatory quarantine locations.

The booking system is flawed in a way that scalpers have already dominated supply and are selling slots for thousands of dollars, reinforcing that NZ is becoming increasingly unaffordable for typical people.

More information including petition to overhaul the booking system can be found here: https://www.groundedkiwis.com/

I'm also an NZer overseas.

I believe there was plenty of time to fly home before the MIQ was put in place. (I was told about MIQ when I went to vote). However, yeah, I've never seen open spots on the MIQ.

That's just terrible.

In Canada we are allowed to quarantine in our own homes, and the government checks up on you and fines you for leaving within 14 days afaik.

I hope you get home to your family soon.

In Canada, when entering the country via airplane, there's a mandatory regulated 3-day stay at a hotel as part of the 14-day quarantine. This costs 1000-2000$ (for three nights!), And is absolutely an impediment for normal ppl to return to home. The measure was meant to discourage tourism, but ppl working abroad returning, immigrants and students were all treated the same.

(The measure is in effect late Feb to early Aug 2021)

And that is also why we have every foreign origin covid variant floating around in Canada. Quarantine by honor system clearly hasn't worked.

I wish we had been stricter with international travel so that we could have had less restrictions at home.

I was dumbfounded by the "restrictions" myself.

You can't drive over the border, but you can fly? Makes 0 sense.

yes, and that's (part of) why Canada has endemic Covid-19 and NZ does not.

So you can think of no other explanation why a remote island country without any land borders, and with it's closest (still further than US is from Europe, but closest) neighbour not having a spreading infection, might be safer against spreading infections than a country with a 9000 barely-patrolled border with a neighbour that had it's Corona response (first) directed by a real estate billionaire ?

"New Zealanders stranded overseas"

No I don't think so. All citizens can return home. Believe the issue is booking over booked quarantine facilities for arrival

If quarantines facilities are booked, then they cannot? Then it's not true they can return (if they are booked).

It's like you have to wait for a scheduled fight to go back to your country. You can't run towards the ocean and flap your arms and go by yourself. So if there are no flight during convid you are waiting and not going home. They have to wait for practical reasons which isn't a ban

So they can return home in theory but mostly not in practice.

Government only organised a few quarantine locations, WAY too few. So scalpers are "buying" all the quarantine spots, then reselling them for 10x profit.

Rich enough? You can go home. Poor? Yeah, sucks to be you.

Taking your kid to Fiji in the middle of a pandemic just seems negligent to me. Sure, accept them for treatment but charge the parents with abuse.

How would the diplomacy work here between NZ and Fiji's government, if NZ was to rule that having/bringing kids in Fiji is negligence?

According to the article, he has been "based" there. It doesn't seem like a vacation, so much as a place to isolate. Is it fair that Larry Page gets to go to Fiji to isolate while the rest of us are at home? No. But it's not exactly irresponsible either (from a health perspective).

He’s not a citizen, he willingly chose to bring his kid to a fairly remote part of the world for a long term stay. That’s not irresponsible to you? Bringing your children places where you cannot get them adequate care?

No. The number of times I've needed a medevac flight is approximately zero. It's not like Fiji has no healthcare for routine issues (not to mention that Larry Page can easily afford to fly doctors in from anywhere on a private jet). Obviously, a medevac flight indicates something more serious, and probably unexpected.

Frankly, even given private planes and all, I would probably not have chosen some place outside the US to ride out the pandemic simply given that it adds a potential level of complexity in the case of an outbreak in an uncertain world. But there's nothing inherent to Pacific islands--including those in the state of Hawaii--that would make it inherently irresponsible to take a child there for a week or for months.

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