All passengers on board an Air NZ Cook Islands flight at the centre of a Covid-19 scare have tested negative to the virus, but three have been put into supervised quarantine as a precaution.
1 NEWS understands two of the passengers had been to Auckland University of Technology (AUT) – the same venue that the recently identified Covid-19 case in Auckland had visited.
While the passengers had received an email the day before their flight from the Cook Islands Ministry of Health asking them to urgently inform them if they had been to certain venues of interest, it unfortunately had the wrong university.
It lists the University of Auckland instead of AUT – a completely different campus.
The realisation was made at Auckland Airport just before the flight left - ironically with a New Zealand Ministry of Health Covid assessment team on board.
Those arriving in the Cook Islands, only residents and visa holders allowed, do not have to quarantine usually but the two passengers who had been to AUT along with a person seated next to one of them were taken into supervised quarantine as a precaution.
According to a Cook Islands Ministry of Health media release a doctor boarded the flight when it landed at Rarotonga Airport and “explained the situation in a briefing to all passengers”.
However, passenger Metua Vaiimene says they weren’t told of the Covid-19 link just that they were going to be tested because of the recent cases in Auckland.
He said all they were told was to practise social distancing and wear a mask in public.
“I wasn’t aware until this morning when I saw the Te Marae Ora (Ministry of Health) media release via social media that there were some people on our flight who had been to some of the places on the list,” he said.
He said he was taking the opportunity to be a conscientious citizen and place himself in self isolation and if the Ministry of Health hadn’t responded to him by today he assumes he will be safe along with his bubble.
The New Zealand Ministry of Health team are in Rarotonga for a week looking at processes at the border and safety measures with the view to having a travel bubble.
Businesses are being encouraged to use the CookSafe checkin system and safety measures at the wharf include not allowing crews off the ships and sanitising cargo.
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