ABSTRACT
Aotearoa New Zealand is an island nation of approximately five million people, located in the Pacific Ocean. Within days of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) a public health emergency of international concern in late January 2020, the New Zealand government began using border restrictions to manage the pandemic. This started with barring entry to travelers from China, except for returning New Zealand citizens, permanent residents, and their families. On the 19th of March 2020, with a few exceptions, the government closed its borders to all countries. At that time, 28 cases had been reported in the country, spread over a wide geographical area. In this paper, we describe Aotearoa New Zealand’s border measures and discuss how they worked together with other public health measures to give the country one of the best mortality protection and economic outcomes amongst countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
