Coronavirus: Government charters Air NZ flight to assist Wuhan departure

Thursday, 30 January 2020

The Government will charter an aircraft to assist New Zealanders leaving Wuhan, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced.

The aircraft will have capacity for around 300 passengers and will fly from Wuhan to New Zealand. Officials will be working through operational requirements with Air New Zealand and Chinese authorities.

Kiwis evacuated from Wuhan will not be quarantined on Christmas Island, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says.

Australia and New Zealand are working together to get the countries' citizens out of the Chinese city that is at the centre of a deadly coronavirus outbreak. The number of people in Australia confirmed with coronavirus has risen to seven, with a 44-year-old Chinese national becoming the first confirmed case in Queensland.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says evacuated Kiwis won't be quarantined on Christmas Island where Australia has an immigration detention centre.

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Australians evacuated from Wuhan would be quarantined on Christmas Island, where Australia has an immigration detention centre.

Talking to RNZ on Thursday morning, Peters ruled out sending New Zealand evacuees to Christmas Island.

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Jacinda Ardern says she spoke with Australia's Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, yesterday about a joint evacuation effort for Kiwis trapped in Wuhan due to the outbreak of Coronavirus.

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'We're looking at the quarantine options within New Zealand already. We're working on that,' Peters said.

He couldn't yet say where evacuees coming to New Zealand were likely to be quarantined. 'We can't tell you that, at this point in time,' Peters said.

A man in Wuhan, China, uses alcohol to disinfect the grounds nearby the Wuhan Huoshenshan hospital construction site. The 2019 coronavirus which originated in Wuhan has infected 4500 people and killed at least 109, mostly in China.

'We have been seriously looking at that issue and we will be able to provide, when we nail it down, an answer, but that is our intent.'

The timing of any evacuation depended on getting the go ahead from the Chinese government for an aircraft to be used. 'We haven't got all the options we would like, because if it's a military aircraft it takes so much longer for us to get that agreed upon,' Peters said.

'I think, hitherto no such agreement has been reached with any other country where military aircraft for extraction have been used. But at the moment we are doing the best we can to get that ironed out, with respect to our options, alongside Australia.'

Qantas is reported to be planning an emergency flight to Wuhan. Peters said agreement from staff was needed for them to provide personnel for the plane.

'It's awfully complex to go through that. Then the medical specialists would be put together. All the safeguards for containment, with respect to the crew and respect to the passengers before and after, as well as the quarantine provisions.'

Medical workers in protective gear talk with a woman suspected of being ill with a coronavirus at a community health station in Wuhan in China.

National's foreign affairs spokesman Gerry Brownlee said the Government's approach appeared to be vague and it seemed 'weird' Peters had ruled out an available quarantine on Christmas Island without having an alternative plan.

'New Zealanders can be retrieved from Christmas Island … and brought back. They do have to go into quarantine and to have no plan for where that might be carried out, is serious stuff.'

He would not say if Peters was right to rule out Christmas Island because he did not know what the conditions were or what the proposed medical treatment might be.

'Yes, we are totally reliant on the Australians to assist us in getting New Zealanders out of Wuhan but having no follow-up plan at this point is not very comforting.'

He believed the Government should call its emergency meeting of the Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination (ODESC) to get immediate responses and get moving.

During an emerging or security event ODESC provides coordination, political links, strategic advice and ensures the lead agency has resources.

A spokesman for the prime minister said she had indicated that New Zealand would manage its own people.

The Ministry of Health had a pandemic plan in place and would act in accordance with that.

His understanding was the plan would include options for quarantine and what it might look like.

Tourism Industry Aotearoa communications manager Ann-Marie Johnson said the Ministry of Health had individual memorandum of understanding agreements with some hotels where the ministry could ask that rooms be made available for quarantine purposes.

Travellers wearing face masks exit the arrivals hall at Auckland International Airport.

She was not aware if the ministry had approached hotels to provide rooms for people being evacuated from Wuhan. The ministry has been approached for comment.

WHO RECONVENES EMERGENCY COMMITTEE

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) will reconvene its Emergency Committee on the novel coronavirus on Thursday afternoon in Geneva. It will advise WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus whether the outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and and what recommendations should be made to manage it.

Last week, after delaying for an extra day of deliberation, the committee decided not to declare the outbreak of pneumonia caused by a new coronavirus to be an emergency, which surprised many global health experts.

Previously, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat) confirmed to Stuff that New Zealand consular officials will join an Australian consular team in Wuhan on Thursday to work through the details of any assisted departure.

The ministry continued to work through options to assist New Zealand citizens to leave Wuhan, including an Australian or New Zealand-arranged chartered flight, with both commercial and military options being explored, a Mfat spokeswoman said.

'This situation remains complex as we work through all the necessary approvals and requirements including logistics, and health and safety requirements.'

In a series of meetings on Wednesday afternoon, Qantas and the Australian government grappled with the operational hurdles.

Qantas has never flown to Wuhan and it would need to receive clearance from the closed airport to put up to 400 people on a Boeing-747 – the largest plane it has available.

The design of Christmas Island's runway, which is not grooved, also means it can not land the same plane on the island with a full passenger load. The airline is considering landing the larger plane at an airport on the Australian mainland and then seeking government cooperation to transfer passengers onto smaller aircraft to the detention centre.

Australia's chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said those who took the flight would have to consent to going to Christmas Island as part of being transported.

On Thursday, Air New Zealand said it was closely monitoring coronavirus developments and following guidance from the Ministry of Health and World Health Organisation.

All of its services, including those to China, were operating as normal, the airline said in a travel alert. Air New Zealand operates one Auckland-Shanghai service a day.