17th June 2020 By Staff Reporter | news@tourismticker.com | @tourismticker
Staff and guests at Novotel Auckland Ellerslie and Air New Zealand workers are being contact traced and tested after two recent arrivals returned positive results for Covid-19.
Director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the two women were granted an exemption for travel under compassionate grounds, which saw them leave mandatory isolation at the Auckland hotel early to travel to Wellington following the death of a parent.
Dr Ashley Bloomfield
The pair, who should have been tested before they left Auckland, were tested for Covid-19 in Wellington on Monday and positive results were returned yesterday.
They had initially travelled from the United Kingdom via Doha and then Brisbane before beginning the required 14-day isolation at Novotel Auckland Ellerslie on 7 June.
“Everybody who is currently in the facility is being held within the facility and will be tested and teams are there doing that now,” Bloomfield said.
“Anyone who has been in the facility and may have left since the 7 June will be followed up by the national contact tracing service.”
Bloomfield said Air New Zealand staff and passengers, as well as Customs officers, would be traced and, if considered a close contact, tested for Covid-19.
The women, who were from the same family, travelled to Wellington in a private car on Saturday 13 June and did not have contact with other people on the journey, nor did they use any public facilities.
They were now staying with a family member in Wellington.
“A new case is something we hoped we wouldn’t get, but it is something we expected and planned for,” Bloomfield said.
The government had now suspended all requests for compassionate exemption from mandatory isolation until a review of the system was completed.
The developments followed 24 consecutive days with no new Covid-19 cases in New Zealand.
It brings the total number of confirmed cases in New Zealand to 1156, which included 22 deaths.
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