The decision to reopen the land borders was in part made to ensure that the United States reopened to foreigners traveling by air and land at the same time, officials said. While those traveling by airplane will need to show both proof of vaccination and a negative coronavirus test to enter the United States, there will be no testing requirement for those crossing the land border.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers people fully inoculated two weeks after they receive the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, or a single dose of Johnson & Johnson’s.
Those who have received vaccines listed for emergency use by the World Health Organization, such as AstraZeneca’s, would also be considered fully vaccinated — a standard one senior official said would probably be applied to those crossing the land border. Officials added that the C.D.C. was still discussing whether foreigners crossing from Canada or Mexico with two doses from different vaccines could enter.
The decision to lift the restrictions on air travel had been celebrated by business leaders overseas and in the United States. Travel spending dropped nearly in half to about $600 billion in 2020 from a year earlier, according to the U.S. Travel Association, a trade group.
And businesses in places from Buffalo to San Diego to South Texas rely on tourists or those making a short visit to shop before returning home.
“Border communities have been hamstrung because of port closures,” Representative Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat who represents a border district, said in an interview. “Not only did we suffer more significant health devastation in 2020, but the economic devastation has been longer for us because of those port closures.”
“This is great, and long overdue, news,” she added.
Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, said the lifting of the restrictions would benefit communities she represents like Point Roberts, a town detached from the rest of her state “almost entirely dependent on cross-border travel to sustain their economy.”
But she warned that after “months of economic calamity” inflicted largely by the border closure, more would be needed to ensure that the community could fully recover.
EXCLUSIVE: Noelle Borders is determined to keep her mother’s story alive and carry on her legacy of perseverance in the face of one of the world’s greatest tragedies.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, the striking 2001 photograph of 9/11 survivor Marcy Borders — covered in dust from the falling debris of the collapsing Twin Towers in New York City — has become a symbol of the collective trauma of that day, leaving thousands dead and millions heartbroken from what remains America’s deadliest terrorist attack.
The photo, captured by then Agence France-Presse photographer Stan Honda, is so haunting that it is considered one of the most iconic images of 9/11.
Marcy Borders, one of many survivors of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center who were photographed on September 11th, 2001. The images have been seen all over the world and have been viewed as iconic images of that tragic day. — Photo by Neville Elder/Corbis Sygma (Photo by Neville Elder/Corbis via Getty Images)
Borders, then a 28-year-old Bank of America employee just a few weeks on the job, had barely escaped the 81st floor of World Trade Center’s North Tower alive. And while her story of survival was miraculous, Borders revealed in interviews years later that the traumatic experience left her unable to cope with its aftermath; so much so that she struggled with alcohol and drugs throughout the years and at one point even loss custody of her young son.
Eventually Borders checked into a rehabilitation facility, turned her life around and regained custody of her child. But while she was able to turn her story of trauma into one of triumph, the New Jersey mom unfortunately died of stomach cancer in 2015 at the age of 42.
Borders’s daughter, Noelle Borders, who was just 8 years old at the time of the attacks, tells theGrio that she is determined to keep her mother’s story alive and carry on her legacy of perseverance in the face of one of the world’s greatest tragedies. Noelle, now a 28-year-old elementary history teacher in Bayonne, New Jersey, says she remembers 9/11 quite vividly.
“I remember my third grade teacher would roll in the TV cart to show us current events on the news, and while doing that, I guess the display of what was taking place on the screen — she wound up turning the screen off,” Borders recalls during a recent interview with theGrio.
Smoke pours from the World Trade Center after being hit by two planes September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Photo by Fabina Sbina/ Hugh Zareasky/Getty Images)
Soon after, students were being picked up from school one by one, but Noelle’s mom, who was head of the Parent-Teachers Association, never showed. “I wind up being like one of the very last kids to leave the classroom,” she remembers.
Eventually, Noelle’s aunt picked her up from school and took her home. At the time, her family did not know whether Marcy Borders was dead or alive. “I remember just the adults at home being very standoffish. They really didn’t want to talk around me. They didn’t want to let me know what was taking place. They didn’t want me to be upset. So any conversation that they had, they took it outside,” she says.
Despite fears for the worst, Noelle’s family was relieved to discover that Marcy Borders had indeed survived the attack. She was able to get to a phone booth and call home to let them know that she was OK. But while she had physically survived the horrors of that tragic day in history, Marcy Borders would spend several years struggling to feel safe and find peace of mind.
“She got into like a shell shock. She was very afraid. She didn’t want a lot of people around. Even people that we were familiar with that she knew wouldn’t hurt her,” Noelle recalls.
It also didn’t help that Marcy Borders’ picture, covered in dust from the debris, was plastered all over the news. Her photograph was so widely distributed that she had been nicknamed “The Dust Lady.” The image, Noelle says, became a triggering one for her mother, who felt like the public attention would soon make her a target of another attack.
This combo photo shows Marcy Borders 11 September 2001 after the the attacks on the World Trade Center (R) and Borders during an interview in her apartment 08 March, 2002, in Bayonne, New Jersey. She was on the 81st floor of the first tower that was struck. (Photo by STAN HONDA/AFP via Getty Images)
Noelle says she remembers a time when she begged her mother to take her to a town parade just days after an anniversary of 9/11. While at the parade, however, a plane could be heard flying low above the crowd.
“She heard that noise and began to panic. At this point, the streets are flooded with people from our town. She grabbed my hand and me and her are the only two people running away from the plane sound. And then eventually she just stopped” after realizing she was actually safe from harms way, Noelle says.
Every year during the anniversary of 9/11, the infamous photo of Marcy Borders covered in dust often triggered her mother, Noelle tells theGrio. Taking on the feelings of her mom, who she described as her “best friend,” she too, would become emotional whenever she would see the harrowing photo. People would often show Noelle the picture in school and ask her about it.
“I was very overwhelmed. Like I felt like somebody should have been like, all right, leave her alone, or maybe just not even brought the picture to school,” she says.
Noelle says that while she witnessed firsthand how deeply traumatized her mother was by the events of 9/11, as a child she had no idea that her mother had struggled with alcohol and drugs to cope with her grief. “She never allowed me as her child to see that … everything that she did was in the dark and a lot of things that I found out was through interviews,” she shares.
“No matter how hurt she was, no matter how upset she was, protecting me was at the forefront of everything. So honestly, I was just as shocked as anybody else reading how she dealt with it and me not even noticing it as a child because she covered it up so well.”
Marcy Borders with daughter Noelle Borders. (Photo: YouTube/Pix 11)
Marcy Borders was eventually able to overcome her trauma and find peace with her experience inside the World Trade Center tower. Rather than thinking of herself as a victim in perpetual fear of another attack, she began to see herself as a survivor — someone who overcame it. Noelle says her mom eventually returned to the “full of life” personality that she was, and instead of hiding from her past she began speaking out about her experience with the press as a way to take back control of the narrative and inspire others.
“Her story honestly helped so many other people throughout their struggles … she was not just a hero to me, but she was a hero to many other people,” Noelle shares. “So many of the people were able to relate to her story.”
But sadly, Marcy Borders was met with more tragedy when she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Noelle, who was 22 at the time, says she didn’t know what stage of cancer her mom was in. Her mom didn’t share the severity of her illness because she wanted Noelle, a college senior, to enjoy her final year of school.
“I do remember our last Mother’s Day together. So that was May of 2015 and she was just looking at me like on the verge of tears,” she recalls. “And then that’s when she confirmed that this may be our last Mother’s Day together.”
Noelle Borders, daughter of 9/11 survivor Marcy Borders known as “The Dust Lady.” (Photo: YouTube/Pix 11)
Marcy was able to see her daughter graduate from college, but later that summer on Aug. 24, she lost her battle to cancer. Noelle says that the family was able to confirm that Marcy’s cancer was a result of the debris she breathed in during the 9/11 attack. According to a report from the Associated Press, nearly 24,000 people exposed to World Trade Center dust were diagnosed with cancer over the past two decades.
Noelle says her mission is to keep her mother’s story and memory alive for her younger brother, Zayden, 13 — who was only 7 years old at the time of their mother’s death — and her own son, Liam, who is 3.
“Hopefully one day she’s in his textbooks. And I just want [them] to know how it’s important just to keep her story alive, because not many Black or Brown people’s stories are out there who witnessed or have been through 9/11,” says Noelle. “I just want my son to know that him and my brother are the next in line of her legacy after me. And I want them to continue to be open enough to be able to talk about her story when they’re ready, because I know it took me some time to be ready to as well.”
As for the iconic photo that earned her mom the title “The Dust Lady,” Noelle says wants people to be inspired by it and remember that “no matter what may be thrown their way, they’re able to overcome anything,” adding “the worst is not the end all be all — you’re going to overcome it.“
Noelle says that in an effort to continue telling her mother’s story, she plans to someday publish a book of her mother’s journals. “I’m just ready to pick up and finish what she wasn’t able to,” she says. “Where The Dust Lady stops, her daughter starts.”
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Nobel peace laureate and Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai is calling on countries to open their borders to Afghan refugees as the country is overtaken by the Taliban. Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012 because the then-teenager advocated for educating girls.
The terrorist group rapidly returned to power in Afghanistan as the U.S. was withdrawing its forces after the 20-year U.S.-led war. Taliban fighters took control of the presidential palace and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled Kabul on Sunday.
Videos show dozens of civilians running toward an airplane on a tarmac at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Monday, desperately clamoring to escape the capital city after Taliban rapidly took over.
Yousafzai said the images of civilians trying to flee Afghanistan are “shocking,” telling BBC News in an exclusive interview that it is an “urgent humanitarian crisis.”
“We are living in a world where we’re talking about advancements, about equality, about gender equality. We cannot see a country going decades and centuries back,” the now-24-year-old told BBC Newsnight’s Sima Kotecha. “We have to take some bold stances for the protection of women and girls, for the protection of minority groups and for peace and stability in that region.”
Yousafzai was 15 years old when her advocacy for education made her the target of a Taliban assassination attempt.
On Oct. 9, 2012, a masked gunman jumped into a pickup truck taking girls home school and shouted “who is Malala” before shooting her in the head. She had been blogging and speaking out against the denial of education to young girls in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, advocacy work she began when she was 11 years old.
She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 and has since enrolled in Oxford University. She was able to return to Pakistan for the first time in 2018 as leaders in the country declared terrorism defeated.
However, nearby Afghanistan, which was ruled by Taliban for years prior to the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, is now under siege again in the wake of a U.S. military withdraw.
During their reign from 1992 to 2001, Taliban kept women in Afghanistan under the control of male family members and girls out of school.
“I think every country has a role and responsibility right now,” Yousafzai said during the BBC News interview. “Countries need to open their borders to Afghan refugees, the displaced people.”
According to the European Asylum Support Office, Syrians, Afghans and Pakistanis file the most applications for international protection in the world, on average. Applications from Afghanistan have been steadily increasing, and in May were up 33% from February 2021.
But as the number of Afghan refugees climbed, some European countries wanted to migrants from the country to leave.
Interior ministers from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands sent a letter to the European Union’s executive branch on August 5, asking to “intensify talks” with the Afghan government about the deportations of refugees, according to The Associated Press.
“We would like to highlight the urgent need to perform returns, both voluntary and non-voluntary, to Afghanistan,” letter reads “Stopping returns sends the wrong signal and is likely to motivate even more Afghan citizens to leave their home for the EU.”
Now that the Taliban has taken over, some countries are reversing course.
Earlier this month, Germany and the Netherlands suspended any deportations of migrants from Afghanistan, due to the threat the Taliban poses on citizens.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said 10,000 people may need to be evacuated from Afghanistan, according to sources, Reuters reports.
Human rights activists, lawyers, 2,500 Afghan support staff and other at-risk personnel would need evacuation after the Taliban seized Kabul, according Reuters. Merkel said that Germany should also support countries bordering Afghanistan to help fleeing refugees.
A U.S. Defense Department official said Sunday that 1,000 more U.S. troops were being sent to Afghanistan to assist in the evacuation of Americans, bringing the total to 6,000, with 3,000 on the ground now.
During Monday’s chaos, all flights were halted, but evacuations are expected to resume Monday evening, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
In July, the Biden administration announced that “Operation Allies Refuge” to support Afghans who face threats from the Taliban for helping the U.S. during the 20-year war.
The operation will support relocation flights for individuals and their families who helped the U.S. government and are applying for Special Immigrant Visas.
The State Department coordination unit leading “Operations Allies Refuge” is not releasing more details on when the flights will depart or where the applicants will wait while their applications are going through. Kirby said the Pentagon is evaluating overseas and domestic locations to temporarily house Afghan refugees during the process.
Yousafzai said she has sent a letter to the leader of her own home country, Prime Minister Imran Khan, asking him to allow refugees and “also ensure that refugee children and girls have access to education and have access to safety and protection.”
“Their futures are not lost, they can enroll in local schools. They can receive education within those refugee camps,” she said.
The activist said she has not yet contact British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but said those watching should know “there is an important strategic leadership role right now,” and they should “take a bold stance for the protection of human rights.”
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Israel is once again expected to push off allowing individual tourists into the country amid concerns over rising COVID-19 morbidity, according to a television report on Saturday.
The postponement would see the return of general tourism move from August to September, according to Channel 13 news.
Israel has been allowing some tour groups into the country in recent months, but not tourists traveling independently. It had initially planned to reopen to the latter in May, but Health Ministry recommendations pushed the plans to June, then August, and that date is now expected to be moved back until September.
The network said the ministry is set to recommend the latest delay to the cabinet, though no official decision has been made yet.
The Health Ministry is also expected to recommend that children start the next school year by studying in socially distanced “capsules,” television reports said, due to worries that the coronavirus could spread among unvaccinated students.
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According to Health Ministry data, some 35% of 12-15-year-olds have received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine so far. Another 11% are designated as recovering from the virus.
According to Channel 12, as of Saturday, 200,000 12-15-year-olds have received the first dose of the vaccine, including 15,000 over the weekend. Three of the country’s largest HMOs said 50 percent of that age group has received the first shot, according to the network.
Saturday was the deadline for teens to get their first dose of the vaccine with the country’s current batch, as the existing stock of vaccines will expire at the end of July. Children aged 12-15 who did not get their first dose by Saturday will not be able to get their second dose three weeks later, and will be forced to wait until the next Pfizer batch arrives.
The next shipment of Pfizer shots had been expected to arrive in September. However, Channel 12 reported Saturday that Israel is in talks with Pfizer in the hopes of getting the next delivery in August. Outgoing Health Ministry director-general Chezy Levy confirmed to Kan news that officials were hoping to speed up the next delivery so that the inoculation of teens could continue.
Israeli youth receive the COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Tel Aviv, on July 6, 2021. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)
Meanwhile, people over the age of 16 will be able to be vaccinated with Moderna’s vaccine, which has not yet been approved for use in the under-16 age group.
On Saturday evening, the Health Ministry published updated COVID-19 figures showing that the number of seriously ill patients had risen to 43.
Some 700 news cases were diagnosed over the weekend.
The number of active cases stood at 4,064, and the death toll since the start of the pandemic rose by one to 6,435.
Of the 84,553 tests performed Friday, 0.7% came back positive, similar to the rate in recent days, but higher than last month’s positivity rate, which hovered near zero on some days.
On Wednesday and Thursday, the country saw the first deaths attributed to the virus in over two weeks.
The resurgence of the virus, due to the Delta variant, has become a major issue for Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s new government, coming less than two months after the number of cases dwindled as a result of mass vaccination, allowing Israel to lift most restrictions and reopen public life.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett delivers televised remarks at Ben Gurion Airport, on June 22, 2021. (Flash90)
On Friday, the Health Ministry announced that all travelers, including those vaccinated and those who recovered from COVID-19, would be required to self-isolate for up to 24 hours upon arrival to the country, starting late next week.
Meanwhile, those returning from 16 countries deemed to have high rates of infection will be required to fully self-isolate for 14 days, or 10 days with two negative tests, according to the ministry’s updated guidelines, which will go into effect on July 16.
Israelis who are vaccinated or who recovered from COVID-19 had been, until recently, largely exempt from quarantine upon returning to the country.
The Health Ministry on Friday also updated the list of countries with high rates of infection from which Israelis are barred. The countries that are off-limits for Israelis are Uzbekistan, Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico and Russia.
The resurgence of coronavirus in Israel has been largely attributed to the spread of the Delta variant, which was first detected in India and is believed to be twice as contagious as the original COVID strain.
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Scientists are mapping the mysterious “lost” continent of Zealandia — which was discovered in 2017 — for the first time. The gigantic landmass in the South Pacific disappeared beneath the waves 23 million years ago.
It was originally part of the gigantic super-continent Gondwana, which was made up of continents which now exist in the southern hemisphere.
Covering 1.9 million square miles, Zealandia is six times larger than than Madagascar, the next-largest continental fragment.
It extends from south of New Zealand northward to New Caledonia and west to the Kenn Plateau off Australia’s east coast.
About 94 per cent of the landmass is underwater.
The “hidden” continent is now being partially mapped thanks to a deepwater mapping expedition led by The University of Queensland, The Sun reported.
Chief scientist Dr Derya Gürer spent 28 days at sea on Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor, exploring the north-western edge of the continent.
“We’re only just starting to discover Zealandia’s secrets,” Dr Gürer said. “It’s remained hidden in plain sight until recently and is notoriously difficult to study.”
Radar scans carried out by the team explored the contours of the narrow connection between the Tasman and Coral Seas in the Cato Trough region – the narrow corridor between Australia and Zealandia.
In total, they have provided 14,00 square miles of topographical data to the Seabed 2030 project.
The project aims to produce a publicly available bathymetric map to measure the depth of the world’s ocean floor depth by 2030.
Read more: Scientists discover new continent named ‘Zealandia’
“The seafloor is full of clues for understanding the complex geologic history of both the Australian and Zealandian continental plates,” Dr Gürer said.
“This data will also improve our understanding of the complex structure of the crust between the Australian and Zealandian plates. It’s thought to include several small continental fragments, or microcontinents, that were split from Australia and the supercontinent Gondwana in the past.”
Zealandia is thought to have broken off from Gondwana between 85 and 79 million years ago.
The supercontinent encompassed what is today South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Zealandia, Arabia and the Indian subcontinent.
By about 23 million years ago, it’s thought that Zealandia was almost completely submerged in water.
Experts spent 20 years gathering data to make the case for the submerged landmass being a continent. Their efforts were frustrated because most of it is hidden beneath the waves.
The Paris-based media advocacy group said in a statement that it had filed the complaint with a federal court in Karlsruhe, Germany, on Monday and was requesting that prosecutors open a formal investigation. The court confirmed to CNN Business that it had received the complaint.
According to Reporters Without Borders, the complaint accuses the crown prince and four other Saudi officials of having “organizational or executive responsibility” for the killing of Khashoggi, as well as involvement in “developing a state policy to attack and silence journalists.”
Saudi officials did not immediately respond to CNN‘s requestsfor comment on the Reporters Without Borders complaint.
Khashoggi, a US resident and columnist for the Washington Post, was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Last week, the United States released an intelligence report concluding that bin Salman approved the operation to capture or kill the Saudi journalist.
Saudi Arabia rejected the allegations. The Saudi Foreign Ministry released a statement following the report’s publication saying the country “completely rejects the negative, false and unacceptable assessment in the report pertaining to the Kingdom’s leadership, and notes that the report contained inaccurate information and conclusions.”
The crown prince has denied that he ordered Khashoggi’s murder but has said that he bears responsibility.
“This was a heinous crime,” he said in an interview with CBS in 2019. “But I take full responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia, especially since it was committed by individuals working for the Saudi government.”
The murder of Khashoggi and the detentions “reveal a system that threatens the life and liberty of any journalist in Saudi Arabia — in particular those who speak out publicly against the Saudi government,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. Saudi Arabia is ranked 170 out of 180 countries in the group’s World Press Freedom Index.
“Those responsible for the persecution of journalists in Saudi Arabia, including the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, must be held accountable for their crimes,” Reporters Without Borders secretary general Christophe Deloire said in the statement. “While these serious crimes against journalists continue unabated, we call on the German prosecutor to take a stand and open an investigation into the crimes we have revealed.”
Reporters Without Borders said that Germany’s judiciary is the “best suited system” to receive its complaint because its courts have standing to investigate some international crimes and has “already shown readiness and willingness to prosecute international criminals.”
In June 2019, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, found that it was “inconceivable” the Saudi royal heir wasn’t aware of the operation. In September 2020, a Saudi court sentenced eight suspects to prison, a sentence Callamard called a “parody of justice.”
Last week, Callamard called on the United States to fully declassify its findings on Khashoggi’s “brutal extrajudicial execution,” and said that since his remains have yet to be located, the international crime of enforced disappearance continues.
“His loved ones continue to be subjected to further suffering until Saudi Arabia discloses what was done with his remains,” she said.
— Will Godley, Sarah El Sirgany and Nic Robertson contributed reporting.
North Korea sealed its borders more than a year ago, grounding flights and shutting its borders with neighboring China and Russia because of the pandemic.
This week, a few Russians found a way out.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that several employees at its embassy in North Korea had taken an unusual route — one that included a bus ride and a trip on a hand-pushed railroad trolley — to reach the country’s border with Russia.
The group included the embassy’s third secretary, Vladislav Sorokin, and his 3-year-old daughter, the ministry said on its official Facebook page. It also posted a photograph showing several children sitting on the trolley beside suitcases, with adults walking behind them on a railroad track and snow-capped hills in the distance.
When the group arrived at a Russian border post in Siberia, they were met by colleagues from the Foreign Ministry and taken to an airport in Vladivostok, the ministry’s post said.
It was not clear from the post whether the group had broken any North Korean regulations or encountered any police or border officials. The ministry did not immediately respond to an email on Friday requesting further details about the journey.
North Korea closed its borders in January 2020 out of fears that a Covid-19 outbreak could seriously test its underequipped public health system and a domestic economy that was already struggling under international sanctions, analysts say.
The country has also deployed troops along its border with China with “shoot to kill” orders to prevent smugglers from bringing in the coronavirus, Gen. Robert B. Abrams, commander of the United States military in South Korea, said in September.
The North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said last summer that he would not accept international aid after devastating floods in his country for fear that outside help might bring in the virus, the state news media reported.
But Mr. Kim is apparently willing to import Covid-19 vaccines. According to a report this month by Covax, an international group that has negotiated for vaccine doses, North Korea is expected to receive nearly two million doses of the AstraZeneca shot by the middle of this year.
The North’s state news media has long insisted that the country has no confirmed Covid-19 cases, but outside experts are skeptical.
Medical authorities, meanwhile, may approve a Covid-19 vaccine as early as next week, Ardern said, as pressure mounts for a start to vaccinations after the country confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus in the community in months.
“Given the risks in the world around us and the uncertainty of the global rollout of the vaccine, we can expect our borders to be impacted for much of this year,” Ardern said at a news conference.
For travel to restart, authorities either needed confidence that those vaccinated don’t pass Covid-19 on to others, which is not yet known, or enough of the population needed to be vaccinated so people can safely re-enter New Zealand.
But both possibilities will take some time, she said.
“In the meantime, we will continue to pursue travel bubbles with Australia and the Pacific, but the rest of the world simply poses too great a risk to our health and our economy to take the risk at this stage.”
The recent community case, in a woman who returned to New Zealand on December 30 and had tested positive for the South African strain of the virus after leaving a two-week mandatory quarantine, led Australia to immediately suspend a travel bubble with New Zealand for 72 hours.
Ardern said the country’s medicines regulator Medsafe was working towards granting provisional approval for the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE vaccine.
The first vaccines are due to arrive in New Zealand by the end of the first quarter, but the government wanted everything is in place in case of an earlier arrival.
A tough lockdown and geographical isolation helped the country of 5 million virtually eliminate the novel coronavirus within its borders.
New Zealand reported 2 new cases of Covid-19 at its managed isolation facilities on Tuesday and no new community cases. The country has 65 active cases, 1,934 confirmed cases in all, and 25 deaths.
