According to reporting from Reuters, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is like to reveal new plans to reopen New Zealand’s borders, due to mounting pressure from businesses and the public sector experiencing staff shortages which could potentially fuel inflation. Throughout 2020 and 2021, Prime Minister Ardern has received international recognition for enforcing lockdowns and closing the country’s borders as early as March 2020 to help contain the spread of COVID-19.

New Zealand’s containment success during the pandemic has been due to tough elimination strategies that brought the country to the post-elimination phase of response only 100 days after reporting its first case. As reported in a correspondence by Baker et al published in The New England Journal of Medicine, COVID-19 was introduced to New Zealand early on in the pandemic as a result of the regular large influx of tourists and students from China and Europe. In fact, according to Contagion Live, the authors’ disease models estimated wide COVID-19 transmission which would likely put strain on the healthcare system and disproportionately affect minority populations such as the Maori and Pacific peoples. Yet, due to a lack of testing and contact-tracing resources, in mid-March 2020, the New Zealand government reevaluated its COVID-19 strategy from controlling the virus to getting rid of it altogether. As reported by Contagion Live, this tougher strategy was in the form of a countrywide lockdown which took effect on 26 March 2020.

While Prime Minister Ardern’s strategy of closing New Zealand’s borders has helped contain the spread of COVID-19, it has also put strain on the country’s economy, which is highly dependent on an immigrant workforce. As reported in July 2021 by Reuters, the significant shortage of migrant labor has led to protests among businesses and workers undergoing staffing turmoil.

The Restaurant Association of New Zealand, an industry body that organized the protests, said in a statement “Before COVID-19 hit and closed our borders upwards of 25% of our workforce were international work visa holders. Losing them is enough to make a difference so big that it can affect a business in catastrophic ways.” According to Reuters, as the labor shortage crisis ensued, some restaurants in Auckland and other big cities temporarily closed due to staff shortages or to simply give their exhausted staff some time off.

It is not solely the restaurant industry, but also the dairy, horticulture, housing, services, health, and broader public sector industries that have suffered from under-staffing and have urged the government to lift travel restrictions, according to Reuters. As reported by Al Jazeera on 27 July, more than 30,000 nurses are set to strike, seeking better pay and working conditions amid the under-staffing. As stated by New Zealand Nurses Organization industrial services manager Glenda Alexander, “We rely on internationally qualified nurses to meet our staffing needs but with the borders closed we are not getting any.” The hospitality sector is also being overworked. According to Reuters, around 2000 eateries across the nation stopped service and switched off their lights on Tuesday as a part of the two-month campaign to draw the government’s attention towards the critical shortages in chefs as well as other skilled labor.

According to Reuters, Prime Minister Ardern stated that she will remain cautious when outlining the New Zealand government’s new six-month plan for public health and border control. “Any changes to border settings will be carefully considered in phases, based on risks. We have come too far and gained too many freedoms to rush at this next step and go backwards,” Prime Minister Ardern stated.

As reported by Reuters on 2 August, New Zealand has decided that it will open up one-way quarantine-free travel for workers from Samoa, Tonga, and Vanuatu to help combat labor shortages in the agriculture industry, as announced by Prime Minister Ardern. This new travel policy will only apply to workers who qualify under the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme which permits the horticulture sector to recruit labor from overseas for seasonal work in the case of there not being enough workers present in New Zealand. Reuters reports that businesses are urging the government to amend the plan so that it includes resuming labor imports as soon as possible. New Zealand’s unemployment rate is the same as pre-pandemic levels, with not enough skilled workers to fill the number of available jobs. New Zealand’s underutilization rate, a measure of how many people are working less than they would like, is at a record low.

Prime Minister Ardern and New Zealand policymakers are becoming increasingly concerned with the rise of the COVID-19 Delta variant which is wreaking havoc in the country’s neighbor Australia as well as around the world. According to Nikkei, delta variant outbreaks across Australia have led Ardern to suspend Australia and New Zealand’s “travel bubble” which permitted quarantine-free travel between the two nations. Reuters reports that experts have warned that if the delta variant arrives in New Zealand, lockdowns could be extended as only 21% of the country’s population has been fully vaccinated. Prime Minister Ardern has said that “It (Delta) is much more dangerous than other strains of COVID,” and “It changes our risk calculation in the same way that it’s changed everyone’s risk calculation.”

In order to contain the spread of COVID-19, New Zealand could carry out more mass vaccination programs like the one that was recently carried out in Manukau (south of Auckland). According to Xinhua News, New Zealand began its mass vaccination program in Manukau with the aim of vaccinating upwards of 5000 people a day. Auckland District Health Board stated that the event was intended to enable large groups of people to get vaccinated efficiently in a short period time at a single venue.

With that being said, the government should keep in mind the disparity in vaccination rates between Pasifika people and the rest of the population. According to Stuff, a New Zealand media outlet, only 50,244 Pasifika people have received their second dose of the vaccine out of more than 700,000 New Zealanders who have been fully vaccinated. Therefore, in order to prevent the gap in vaccination rates between the two groups continuing, the government should adopt a targeted approach to increase vaccination rates among the Pasifika and Maori peoples. This could be implemented by setting up vaccination clinics in areas where the populations are predominantly Pasifika and Maori as, according to Dr. Colin Tukuitonga, an associate professor of public health at the University of Auckland, “Many in the Pacific communities wouldn’t have the transport, or are relying on someone with a vehicle to take them to get vaccinated.” He further states “If the government and the Ministry of Health and the district health boards don’t make an extra effort to support, to encourage, to enable Pacific people to get vaccinated I think the gap is going to get wider and wider. I don’t think it will even out at all.”