Housing Minister Megan Woods says they're looking at better ways to let Kiwis back into the country, ahead of the release of an end-to-end review into the managed isolation and quarantine facilities this afternoon.
The overseer of Covid-19 managed isolation and quarantine facilities, Ms Woods told TVNZ 1’s Q+A Kiwis can now be assured of the robustness of the country’s border to keep Covid-19 out of the community.
“What I’ve seen is a system that is working well,” she said, after having recently visited six managed isolation facilities.
She said while people “can have faith” in the system, she was aware “we are reliant on everyone in the facilities following the rules”.
“We are looking for system vulnerabilities [with the review].”
Air Commodore Darren Webb commissioned the review on June 19 soon after he was brought in to help with the facilities after the Government’s multiple instances of border bungles.
Speaking about the introduction of routine testing at days three and 12 in managed isolation and quarantine facilities, Ms Woods said this was “an extra line of defence”.
“The most important public health measure that we take is that we keep people in managed isolation for 14 days.”
She said this was how the country stopped community transmission.
When asked why the daily reporting of the numbers of people who had actually been tested vs. the number that should be tested only started this week, Ms Woods said the information could have already been on hand in the fortnight before she started handling the facilities, but that she was now asking for the numbers to be reported in a specific way.
She said it provided a benefit of allowing her and Commodore Webb to “check at a ministerial level” what was happening on the ground.
Ms Woods said people needed to remember how quickly the country’s system has had to react to the influx of citizens and residents wanting to return home.
She said the Government was now looking at medium- to long-term solutions as it moved away from responding to the pandemic as an emergency.
Ms Woods said Cabinet had received modelling which showed a four per cent growth each fortnight to the end of the year of people in managed isolation facilities. However, she said the figure “could change” depending on the severity of the virus overseas.
“What we’re dealing with here is a demand-driven system. What we're talking about is New Zealand citizens and permanent residents who have a legal right to come home.”
She said Cabinet was looking at the ways it could deal with the demand.
“We have been speaking to airlines … what we’ve said is that we have very predictable 14-day cycles in this,” Ms Woods said.
She said introducing measures for phasing could help smooth out day-to-day fluctuations of people entering and exiting the facilities.
Ms Woods also said there needed to be enough personnel to ensure compliance.
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