Government plans to return to pre-Covid times with QFT in July & resumption of weekly flights in August
The government last week announced the relaxing of MIQ requirements leading up to full quarantine free travel on the 11th of July and the commencement of weekly flights from the 8th of August this year.
Starting from Monday next week the 18th of April, passengers coming from Auckland will spend 7 days in MIQ facilities and 3 days of home self-isolation.
From the next flight on May 2nd to the flight on 22nd June, passengers will not be required to stay in MIQ but will have to home self-isolate for 7 days and then 3 days of restricted public movements with the mandatory wearing of masks.
Premier Dalton Tagelagi told the Radio programme News of the Week last Friday said that one of the government’s preferred MIQ facilities at Homofiti will still be available to those who will need to isolate themselves there instead of going to their homes.
“If there’s a bigger family, with one household, the Homofiti will still be available for those with bigger families or for those who don’t want to take the risk with their families”.
Premier Tagelagi said that starting in July the government would like to see the tourists return to the island and the resumption of tourism travel with the start of quarantine free travel (QFT).
From the 11th of July the government will finally implement a reciprocal QFT arrangement for a maximum of 50 passengers from New Zealand. Niue began QFT with New Zealand in March 2021.
Quarantine free travel means that passengers will go straight from the airport to their homes and can move around without isolation.
From the 8th of August, the government approved the return to the weekly flights but still restricted the number of passengers to 50 per flight.
And from the 10 October the weekly flights will resume as they used to be before the pandemic, with no restrictions on the number of passengers.
It has been two years since Cabinet’s decision to suspend tourism travellers from countries outside of the Pacific and Australia came into effect on March 17th 2020, which started the travel restrictions at the start of the pandemic.
However, the government Communications Office says that the pre-departure requirements such as negative pre-departure tests and passengers being fully vaccinated will still be in place until further notice.
