28 May 2021

NZ pauses travel bubble with Victoria

From First Up, 5:05 am on 28 May 2021

Let's head to Australia now where the state of Victoria went into a seven day lockdown overnight after it became clear that a highly-contagious strain of Covid-19 is spreading out of control. There are now 26 active community cases linked to the Melbourne cluster, with 12 new cases confirmed yesterday. And late yesterday afternoon the Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins announced the pause in quarantine-free travel between New Zealand and Victoria would be extended for another seven days until at least next Friday June 4. But as producer Matthew Theunissen reports, the speed at which the virus is spreading has authorities seriously concerned and considered the biggest test yet of our trans tasman bubble.