NEWS: France imposes 9 month vaccine validity and New Zealand publishes opening timetable

New Zealand publishes opening timetable

One of the most restricted borders in the world during Covid has finally agreed to reopen their borders, but most tourists will have a 6-month wait. Prior to Covid tourism was one of the their main sources of income as a country. 

The reopening will be in 5 stapes and start from 27 February. People will still have to self-isolate for 10 days but can do so at home for the moment. You’d hope that by July this may change otherwise they can kiss goodbye to most tourism for another year. 

Here is the full schedule:

Step 1: Fully vaccinated New Zealanders from Australia can return home from 27 February
Step 2: Fully vaccinated citizens from all other countries can arrive from 13 March. This also applies to critical and skilled foreign workers
Step 3: Up to 5,000 international students are allowed into the country from 12 April
Step 4: Australians and all other visitors who can normally travel visa-free to NZ are expected to be able to travel to the country no later than July (this includes the UK and US). 
Step 5: In October all other visitors and students who normally require a visa can enter

“Opening back up in this managed way balances inflows of travellers so people can reunite and fill our workforce shortages, while also ensuring our healthcare system can manage an increase in cases,” Ms Ardern said in a speech..

France imposes 9-month vaccine validity

I previously wrote how visitors to France will be required to have had a booster to access many facilities if their original second vaccination was more than 4 months ago. Now there is a new change which is not yet showing on the UK FCDO website. If you had your full vaccine course nine months ago (May 2021) or more and you haven’t had a Covid-19 vaccine booster, you must follow the rules for unvaccinated passengers to enter France. I have not seen anything on the FCDO page yet but they are often slow to update. 

The official French government website says

Since January 30, 2022, in order to continue to be considered as fully vaccinated, persons aged eighteen and one month or over wishing to enter the national territory must have received a dose of complementary messenger RNA vaccine no later than 9 months following the injection of the last required dose.

This applies to orange list countries which includes the UK but not the Republic of Ireland. 

It means that you will need to have a ‘compelling reason’ to enter France if you are classed as unvaccinated. Holidays are not a compelling reason, more situations like dying relatives or legal reasons.