Why I Think We Should Keep Our Borders Shut

Borders closed or open? How does this affect families? It has been a long discussion about whether NZ should keep its borders closed or if we should open them. I truly think that the government definitely made the right decision to shut the borders as quickly as they could.

Firstly, I know that SO many families are suffering because some of their family members are out of the country and they are separated until further notice. Which is why getting the vaccine could definitely help these families, at the moment even people that have got the COVID vaccine aren't allowed to leave the country right now, this is because we have Delta going around and we can't risk making it worse. When we have gone down a bit with levels and COVID cases, people are allowed to leave the country, but we have no idea how long that could take. I do think that when we are in level 3 and the person from a family that has family out of the country has had a covid vaccine, had the covid test, and isolated for two weeks and shown no symptoms, they should be allowed to leave the country to go see their family members.

Secondly, I don’t understand why everyone wants to leave the country when there isn't even a place to go to because pretty much all countries are infected by COVID. Yes, you may have been planning a holiday for a while now and maybe you were just about to go, but then COVID-19 hit, I’m gonna say this now, just because you’ve been planning a holiday for ages or whatever, it doesn't mean you get special treatment to leave the country. You leaving the country and coming back makes the COVID cases in the country you left to and the country you came back to go up even higher and make even more people ending up with COVID. So that is why just be patient and wait for the borders to open.

Thirdly, keeping the borders shut definitely helps prevent COVID from getting worse in our country. It definitely does not help with everything and just makes COVID leave straight away, it just helps with getting less COVID cases. Travelling in and out of the country carries sickness or COVID. You may say “but I have something important to go to” but really your “important” thing most likely got cancelled because of COVID. There is no way you can make up an excuse especially like that and get away with it, if you say you have family and you really want to see them, that is more important but as I said before travelling there and back to see family will most likely make covid worse in the country you went to and the country you came back too.

Overall, I think NZ is making the right decisions to move slowly, and wait until COVID makes its way out and off of earth slowly but as soon as it can. Hopefully soon we will go back to our COVID free lives.