Dunedin iso-hotels ruled out as national capacity nears “exhaustion”

23rd July 2020 By Shannon Williams | shannon@tourismticker.com | @tourismticker

Dunedin hotels will not be used for managed isolation and quarantine despite nationwide capacity close to “exhaustion”, says the Government.

Speaking to media on Wednesday afternoon, Air Commodore Darryn Webb and Megan Woods, the minister in charge of the facilities, said a system allocating arrivals to accommodation was in the works.

Megan Woods and Darryn Webb

“In the past three weeks, we have increased capacity by over a third,” Webb said.

“Nonetheless, based on the criteria set by the Ministry of Health, we are now close to exhausting our nationwide capacity.”

Despite that, Dunedin hotels were today ruled out of the programme because the city was not deemed suitable. Webb and Woods visited Dunedin on Friday after going to Invercargill and Queenstown and ruling those two centres out because of a lack of suitable accommodation and health care capability respectively.

“Each facility and particular locations has its own characteristics and the available options in Dunedin presented complicated safety and logistical challenges. They simply exceeded the benefits that they would provide,” Webb said.

There were currently 32 managed isolation and quarantine facilities across five regions in New Zealand: Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua, Wellington and Christchurch. There was a total current capacity of around 7000 for the next 14-day isolation period.

Webb said the aim was to keep the facilities at 90% of maximum capacity. Contracts with the hotels were for six months, until the end of 2020.

Since the borders closed to most international travel on 26 March, 30,475 New Zealanders had returned and gone through the isolation and quarantine programme.

Over the last week, 138 people inquired for an exemption for leaving isolation early, with the number of applications being around 50, and 7 being granted.

So far, 81 cases of Covid-19 had been detected in the isolation facilities.