Guidance for implementing: a) the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Required Testing) Amendment Order 2021, and b) the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border, Isolation and Quarantine, and Required Testing) Amendment Order 2021 at New Zealand Airports and the Air Border 20 April 2021
Background At 11:59pm on 18 April 2021, changes to a number of Orders, including the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Required Testing) Order 2020 (‘the Required Testing Order’), will come into effect. These changes were introduced by the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Air Border, Isolation and Quarantine, and Required Testing) Amendment Order 2021 to enable quarantine-free travel (QFT) between New Zealand and Australia, the Cook Islands and Niue. QFT flights are known as “green flights”. At 11:59 pm on 21 April 2021 further changes to the Required Testing Order, will come into effect. The changes were introduced by the COVID-19 Public Health Response) Amendment Order 2021 to further strengthen the border testing regime in response to the new community cases detected in Auckland in February, and the presence in New Zealand of more transmissible variants of COVID-19, first identified in the UK, South Africa and Brazil. This guidance explains the changes to the Required Testing Order. It updates the guidance issued on 27 November 2020, when the Required Testing Order was last amended. The new changes: •
Exempt some air border workers who only handle green flights from mandatory testing requirements. o
This change applies from 19 April 2021.
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Extend mandatory testing requirements to new groups of border workers.
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Increase the current 14-day mandatory testing frequency for certain higher-risk border workers to every seven days.
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Provide for flexibility in the scope of sampling methods that can be used.
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Clarifies testing cycle requirements to reflect that the time between tests must not exceed the length of the relevant testing cycle. o
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These changes apply from 22 April 2021.
Make it mandatory that employers use the Border Workforce Testing Register kept, maintained and monitored by the Ministry of Health to keep the required records of testing for workers subject to mandatory testing. o
This change applies from 27 April 2021. 3
