Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced that the government is reviewing Covid-19 rules and is generally looking at more extensive settings.
“We’ve been working on the traffic lights over … up to one year, and now is the right moment to examine whether the settings we’ve chosen are appropriate for use. We’ll also consider the use of masks in this study.”
Concerned about the disabled community receiving only 24 hours for consultation regarding the possibility of removing mask-related mandates in various contexts, she said she couldn’t comment on that directly.
“We take part in the procedure of receiving advice from the public health sector … You could be talking to a specific segment that our departments have contacted in the course of our working on the advice they give us, but we haven’t yet officially finished all of this nor received the final recommendation until now.”
Concerning Masks regarding public transports: “I would caveat everything I’m saying is that there are no final decisions been taken, and the final recommendation is yet to be examined
… Previously when we’ve seen cases that were in circulation, one of the reasons public transport was an element of a particular area of focus was that one of the reasons was that New Zealand had the experience of transmission through public transport, and B It’s a place that’s much less ventilated. You also have lots of people.
“And this is why, in the past, with large numbers of cases, it’s been an area which has been the focus.”
“Whenever we get advice, we will consider the diverse range of interests that we have in our environments, and they do range across everything from our disabilities sector to our business sector, the education community, and many other concerns, and it’s our duty as the government officials to take all of these things into.”
She believes that regardless of whether the issue is asked of various groups, it is clear that the federal government has a keen awareness of issues within the disability community.
“We have been around throughout Covid Management.”
She says that through the winter months, the government was aware that as we emerge from winter, this season has been one where the health sector has been hit incredibly severely. As we move into spring, we will examine whether the health settings are appropriate for what they are now.
The PM welcomes international students back.
Ardern is welcoming back international students to an event at Auckland’s University of Auckland today.She claims that she met today with various students from all over the world, both in secondary and higher education.
“We are aware that at this point in the transition to the new academic year, our tertiary institutions – our universities – are home to fifty percent of the students that they had before Covid, and that is an indication for international education to return in force.”
“You could tell that for a large portion of them, the decision to move here to New Zealand had been something they’d been working towards for quite some time, and to feel their excitement to be here at home in New Zealand, I think is not only matched by our excitement of welcoming them.”
“One of the educators at their school told me that since the moment they’ve arrived, they’ve been incredibly emotional since it’s such a wonderful experience to be here in New Zealand.”
Hipkins claims that the government is receiving positive comments about the amount that international students are interested in.
“We’re watching the processing times of visa applications closely. We’ve only had a month since the visas were fully opened, and it’s a bit difficult, but we’re seeing that most applications are completed within the 10-20 working days.”
“We anticipate seeing a solid increase in the number of international students at the University of New Zealand next year, but it will not be back to the level pre-Covid-19, as it’ll take a few years to get there.”
He claims that three-year courses of study will require time to build up the student body each year.
He says a lot of effort has been put into assisting 501 deportees as they arrive, recognizing that they typically come from complex backgrounds.
“It’s not a rule that we agree with, but it’s something we have to accept.”
He claims that many already have relations with the other deportees from the 501.
Ardern says that their circumstances are different and, in some cases, “there’s no obligation for them to stay in touch, and they return to New Zealand as citizens, there’s no obligation on them to keep in touch to us.”
It’s the start of an effort to revive industry in education which was ruined by the Border lockdowns in Covid-19.
Immigration New Zealand has reopened visa applications for students from abroad, and the number of applications is expected to increase in the 2023 academic year.
The number of students has plummeted from 52,000 in New Zealand before the pandemic to only 12,000 in the first week of this year.