{"id":41346,"date":"2022-02-04T12:33:18","date_gmt":"2022-02-04T03:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/feb\/04\/were-all-nervous-nzs-covid-tsar-chris-hipkins-admits-uncertainty-over-border-reopening"},"modified":"2022-02-04T12:33:18","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T03:33:18","slug":"were-all-nervous-nzs-covid-tsar-chris-hipkins-admits-uncertainty-over-border-reopening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=41346","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We\u2019re all nervous\u2019: NZ\u2019s Covid tsar Chris Hipkins admits uncertainty over border reopening"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The minister responsible for New Zealand\u2019s pandemic response says the future is \u2018still something that\u2019s the subject of models rather than reality\u2019<\/p>\n<p>In the midst of an Omicron outbreak and almost two years after New Zealand shut its borders, the government has announced its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/feb\/03\/jacinda-ardern-announces-new-zealand-border-will-open-in-stages-from-end-of-february\">latest reopening plan<\/a>. For most New Zealanders, the coming months will be their first direct experience of widespread Covid-19. No one, not even the minister in charge, knows what exactly will come next.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we\u2019re all nervous about what the next few months has in store for New Zealand,\u201d Chris Hipkins, the minister responsible for the country\u2019s pandemic response, told the Guardian. \u201cCovid-19, and Omicron in particular, is here now \u2013 it is in New Zealand and it will spread. We know that is going to happen. The extent of that, the effectiveness of our public health measures, the effect on our health system and on our most vulnerable populations is still something that\u2019s the subject of models rather than reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/feb\/04\/were-all-nervous-nzs-covid-tsar-chris-hipkins-admits-uncertainty-over-border-reopening\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The minister responsible for New Zealand\u2019s pandemic response says the future is \u2018still something that\u2019s the subject of models rather than reality\u2019In the midst of an Omicron outbreak and almost two years after New Zealand shut its borders, the governmen&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2034,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,1066,56,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-coronavirus","category-new-zealand","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41347,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41346\/revisions\/41347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}