A medical expert has called the Ministry of Health's decision not to test two women granted compassionate exemption from quarantine for Covid-19 before they left "completely unacceptable."
It comes as two new Covid-19 cases were recorded in New Zealand today. They were two women, one in her 30s and one in her 40s who arrived from the UK earlier this month.
Both women arrived in New Zealand together on June 7 and stayed in managed isolation in a hotel in Auckland.
They were permitted on compassionate grounds to travel to Wellington in a private vehicle on June 13 to attend one of their parent's funeral.
Professor of Medicine in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland Des Gorman appeared on Seven Sharp tonight to address the two cases of Covid-19 announced in New Zealand today.
"Hopefully it’s not too big a deal and they can round up all the contacts and test them if needed," he said.
However, he called the decision to let the women leave isolation without being tested for the virus "completely unacceptable".
"It was a complete oversight, we expect our officials to keep us safe and border control and quarantine mean you impose very rigorous standards and you’d expect no one leave quarantine early without testing.
"Certainly someone who was symptomatic should never have been allowed to leave," he said.
"Without question we deserve better and we need better, the community has done a wonderful job with behaviour in ensuring we eliminated Covid-19 from community transmission and we have every reason to demand better than this."
"They had no contact with anyone else. They did not use any public facilities and were with a single family member," Dr Bloomfield said.
Dr Bloomfield said potential contacts with the two women were people on the same Air New Zealand flight from Brisbane and those in the same isolation facility in Auckland.
Prior to testing one was experiencing mild symptoms, he said.
Both women were tested in Wellington.
Dr Bloomfield says he is adding a rule that any person leaving an isolation facility needs to have returned a negative Covid-19 test.
The Government also announced no one will be allowed to leave the 14-day isolation when arriving in New Zealand while they review the compassionate exemption protocol.
He said the only person at risk from the pair was the family member who was in close contact with them.
The two new cases breaks a 24-day streak without any new cases, and a seven-day streak without any active cases in the country.
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