Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the circumstances surrounding the announcement of today’s two new Covid-19 cases were not considered acceptable by the Government.
In a Facebook live address this evening Ms Ardern said the Government expects some cases of Covid-19 to arrive on New Zealand shores at managed isolation facilities.
“However, the two cases coming in that have come in from overseas today were not announced under the circumstances that we would expect at our border and we should be utterly clear on that.
“Those circumstances we do not consider acceptable.
“It does not meet our expectations and I know it will not meet yours either,” she said to the nearly 20,000 viewers on Facebook.
“We are taking it incredibly seriously and you can imagine our response to this news.”
Her comments come as 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 for one of their parents funeral.
"They had no contact with anyone else. They did not use any public facilities and were with a single family member," Director-General of Health Dr Ashley 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.
Professor Des Gorman from Auckland University gives his thoughts.
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.
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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