Ministers are receiving advice from health officials tonight ahead of a decision on whether to impose entry restrictions on travellers from mainland China.
A decision is expected to be announced soon afterwards, a spokesperson for Tourism Minister Stuart Nash's office told 1News.
It comes as Australia on Sunday announced its decision to impose mandatory Covid testing on travellers from the country within 48 hours of departure, beginning on Thursday.
Testing requirements are already being implemented by the US, Canada, Italy and several Asian countries.
France, meanwhile, has reintroduced masks on flights from China and will carry out random PCR tests at its airports.
The European Union will meet later this week to review its approach, with Sweden calling for possible entry restrictions.
The country is seeing a surge in daily infections, and there are fears around the possible emergence of new variants. (Source: 1News)
Mainland China is currently seeing a surge in daily infections since the government ended its stringent "zero-Covid" approach without warning on December 7.
There are also growing fears around the possible emergence of new variants after the Chinese government announced it would be relaxing its travel restrictions from January 8.
Earlier today, Otago University epidemiologist Michael Baker told RNZ that testing requirements should be an option for travellers from any country - in case major resurgences happen overseas.
"It will be important that the policy is framed in a way that it has thresholds," he said.
According to Baker, testing requirements could apply to any country experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases or where there wasn't enough information available to assess the percentage of a population infected with the virus.
He said both thresholds had been met in China.
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