Covid 19 coronavirus: returnee in Rotorua managed isolation refuses to use nasal swabs

By Rowan Quinn for RNZ

A woman suffering from extreme nosebleeds may be forced to spend an extra week in controlled isolation because health officials refuse to allow her to have a Covid-19 throat swab.

Karolina Jordan has been told that she should have a nasal test despite the possibility of bleeding.

Her husband, Warwick Jordan, said she was happy to have as many throat swabs as needed and had even had one done before leaving Europe to be cautious.

She was increasingly distressed at being labeled an evidence evader, she said.

It was his eighth day staying in the isolation facility of the Ibis Hotel in Rotorua, and every morning from the third day, an examiner and a person in military uniform appeared asking him to take a nasal test, he said.

She had explained that the test would hurt her, showed them a medical certificate and said she wanted to have a throat test, Jordan said.

“Then they say ‘no, we won’t give you that, and we’ll take it as a refusal to test you,'” Jordan said.

They told him that if he continued to refuse the mandatory test on the 12th, he would have to stay 22 days instead of 14.

That was despite official documents released to guests on arrival saying a throat swab is an option if needed.

“She’s very upset … she’s gnawing at her … and she’s sitting there alone,” he said.

RNZ has seen Karolina Jordan’s Auckland family doctor’s certificate saying that she experiences a nosebleed, as well as facial and sinus pain, and should have a throat swab.

The nosebleeds could be so profuse that it required hospitalization, Jordan said.

“I’m not saying that my wife should be some kind of exception, just let her in without proof. That would be stupid. I would be against that.

“But you have to take into account the medical situation of people, that they are treated fairly … instead of intimidated.”

She said the evaluators and hotel staff were friendly and polite, but she still felt pressured and stressed.

The decision was made at the policy level, without any evaluation by a doctor at the hotel, he said.

Rotorua’s public health authority Toi Te Ora was in charge of the decision.

His medical health officer, Phil Shoemack, said in a statement that a throat swab was less accurate than a nasal one and could give a false negative.

Toi Te Ora had to balance the well-being of returning travelers with protecting the public from Covid-19, he said.

If returnees did not have a nasal swab, the longer stay would help ensure that they were no longer at risk of having an unrecognized infection.

However, government information provided to all guests of the Ibis in Rotorua said that while the more sensitive nasal swab was preferred, a throat swab was an option for those who could not tolerate it.

He only mentioned that people who need to stay longer if they can’t, or don’t want to, get a throat or nose test.

In a statement to RNZ, a spokesman for the Health Ministry said the final decision was made by Te Toi Ora.