Worrying about the Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 cases, the New Zealand Prime Minister announced a ban on travellers fromIndia.
On the 8th of April, Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, imposed a temporary ban on travellers from India starting from the 11th of April. Jacinda Ardern said, “I want to emphasize that while (the) arrivals of COVID-19 from India has prompted this measure, we are looking at how we manage high risk points of departure generally. This is not a country specific risk assessment..”
According to the sources, ban on travel has not only been imposed on travelers from India but citizens of New Zealand who are traveling from India are not allowed to enter until the 28th of April. The suspension of entry for all travellers would begin from 4:00 P.M., (Indian Standard Time) of the 11th of April till the 28th of April.
The decision of the New Zealand Government regarding the temporary ban was due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in India.
Another major reason to ban travelers from India is to ensure zero community transmission of the virus. In the past 40 days, New Zealand did not report any community transmission of COVID-19 locally.
In addition, the Country is constantly reviewing its border settings as more people with infections came recently, majority from India. To justify the same, New Zealand revealed, in the past 24 hours, 23 new positive Novel Coronavirus cases were reported at its border, of which 17 were from India.
Meanwhile, India is the third worst COVID-19 hit nation with more than 1.28 crore positive cases of the deadly infection. The single day spike in the Novel Coronavirus cases witnessed a massive rise from 10,000 to 1,26,000 in less than a month. As of now, India has more than 8 lakh active COVID-19 cases.
