Pacific travel bubble

Enthusiasm for NZ travel bubble into Pacific dampens

But it's also further highlighted the difficult bind they find themselves in - risk the devastation of the coronavirus or prolong their economic suffering.

Fletcher Melvin, the head of the Cook Islands Chamber of Commerce and the Private Sector Taskforce, has been pushing hard for a travel bubble.

When Aotearoa declared zero cases a week ago, he was ecstatic, and so was the government - 87 percent of the country's economy relies on tourism, three quarters of those visitors from New Zealand.

Jacinda Ardern explains why there's no Pacific travel bubble yet

Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna told Newshub earlier this month that without any cases of the disease, the Cook Islands poses no threat to New Zealand - and vice versa. Samoa, Kiribati, Nauru, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Tuvalu also haven't reported any cases.

New Zealand's last confirmed case was more than three weeks ago, and it's been four weeks since the last patient known to be infected via community transmission left self-isolation.