Further to our news item on Monday 17 January, the Kiwi English teacher who was given until Saturday to leave Vietnam, is now in Auckland after being granted an emergency managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities slot from New Zealand.
Tamara Smith, who went to Da Nang, Vietnam, in May 2019 on a two-year teaching contract, was given just 12 days’ notice that the visa extensions that were issued when the covid pandemic began were not going to be renewed. Faced with the limiting options of either getting a business visa, which would have required a sponsor, or going to a third country to apply for an MIQ slot (she had not been able to get one through the daily lottery), was preparing to go to Thailand when she received the emergency allocation. She had been trying to get a slot since July and now believes the media attention she – and the other New Zealanders in a similar situation in Vietnam – received is what swung it for them.