New Zealand has paused its quarantine-free travel bubble with NSW in response to the Bondi Junction outbreak. The current number of confirmed cases within this latest Sydney cluster is 21, after ten new infections were reported on Tuesday, June 22.
New Zealand said it was pausing the travel arrangements while the source of the new cases was being investigated. While the majority of cases diagnosed thus far in the Bondi cluster have been contact traced by NSW health experts, two cases – a woman in her 20s who works in Bondi Junction and a year 3 student at a Waverley primary school – do not appear to be linked to any known source, suggesting that there could be asymptomatic cases still in the community unknowingly spreading the virus.
Also of concern to both NSW and the New Zealand officials is the transmissibility of this current cluster. The highly contagious delta strain that is spreading in Sydney does not require physical contact to spread.
The pause is initially set to be relatively short – 72 hours as of midnight on Wednesday 23 June – although this may be extended if the unfolding situation in Sydney continues to worsen. This is the second time in two months that the travel bubble has been paused. The last hiatus was in May, just a month after Australians were given access to the travel bubble, in response to the so-called ‘Barbecue Man’ outbreak.