Australia suspended its travel bubble with New Zealand on Monday for 72 hours after a single case of the highly infectious mutant South African strain of COVID-19 was detected there. Health Minister Greg Hunt said any person arriving from New Zealand would have to go into hotel quarantine for three days — effective immediately — while health officials await more information on the case. Ms Ardern revealed on Tuesday she spoke to the Prime Minister on Monday night.“I certainly shared my view that this was a situation that was well under control, that we have had experiences in New Zealand with these situations in the past, if we’re going to run a trans-Tasman arrangement we need to be able to manage situations like this,” she said.
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“I conveyed the confidence that we have in our systems but also just acknowledged that if we are to enter into a trans-Tasman bubble we will need to be able to give people confidence that we won’t see closures at the borders that happen with very short notice over incidents we believe can be well managed domestically.” On Tuesday no further cases in New Zealand had been linked to the person with the mutant strain.Mr Hunt on Monday said the suspension was due to an “abundance of caution” as the case had spent several days in New Zealand before being detected. Ms Ardern said she was hopeful a travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand could start by the end of March.
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