On 12 December 2020, Prime Minister Ardern and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown announced that a travel route between New Zealand and the Cook Islands would be created in 2021. It would allow a two-way quarantine-free travel between the two countries. On 14 December, Prime Minister Ardern confirmed that the New Zealand and Australian Governments had agreed to create a travel route between the two countries the following year. On 17 December, Ardern also announced that the government had bought two more COVID-19 vaccines from the pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Novavax for New Zealand and its Pacific partners.