Plans for a gradual reopening of New Zealand’s border are due to come into effect from the end of next month.

The first stage will allow New Zealand citizens residing in Australia to travel home and self-isolate, as opposed to a stay in a quarantine hotel. Back in December, the government rolled out the original 17th January start date, referring to the need for more people to get the third Covid booster vaccine to tackle the Omicron wave.

“We will likely confirm the specific date at cabinet in the following two weeks,” said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at a news conference on Tuesday in Wellington. “We’ve made no decision to steer away from the guidelines we gave at the end of the year.  We know now we are dealing with Omicron in the community and so no changes have been made to those settings at this stage.”

The country’s border has been closed to foreigners since March 2020, yet citizens and permanent residents have been permitted to return as long as they underwent managed isolation.

The Prime Minister added that the self-isolation obligation will be an essential shield to curb new Omicron cases. Tighter restrictions were imposed on Sunday as cases began to register. On Tuesday, 10 new Omicron cases were reported, to take the total to 29, BNN Bloomberg reports.

New Zealand’s government is due to announce further details of plans to tackle the Omicron variant later this week, such as the use of rapid antigen tests and isolation obligations.

“Because rapid antigen tests can produce false positives we do want to make sure we use them in the right environments,” Ardern said. “People testing in a widespread way for no reason is not something we want to encourage. We don’t want someone staying at home when they don’t need to.”