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The public health risk from COVID-19 has been assessed as low, but it is the eighth incident involving 12 people fleeing managed isolation so far. Security has been tightened at the Rotorua facility following the latest incident.
The initial information is that the man left through a fenced area.
“We are in the midst of the deepest recession on record. We cannot risk another blockade because Labor failed to secure the border,” Brownlee said Thursday.
“It is necessary to carefully analyze how the outbreaks have been allowed to occur at the quarantine facilities in Auckland, Hamilton and Rotorua, and be confident that they will not happen again.”
Brownlee said it only takes one person to get through managed isolation to cause a community transmission and another blockage. The fugitive had no symptoms and tested negative on the third day.
Approximately 50,000 people have gone through controlled isolation and have returned safely to their families and communities without incident so far.
Auckland has been under Alert Level 3 and 2.5 lockdown restrictions for over a month, since COVID-19 was rediscovered in the community in the south of the city.
How COVID-19 returned to New Zealand after 100 days without community transmission is still unknown, but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern admitted that it must have crossed the border in some way.
The Ministry of Health reported seven new COVID-19 cases in New Zealand on Thursday, but all are at MIQ facilities, making it the third day that no cases have been discovered in the community.
It comes three days before the prime minister announces next Monday whether the current alert level 2.5 restrictions in Auckland and the level 2 rules for the rest of the country will be maintained or lifted.
“Certainly that is what we were looking for, for those decisions that we will make, that confirmation of our plan that we will make on Monday with the final advice of the Director General of Health,” Ardern said Thursday. .
She revealed that plan a few days ago when the restrictions were extended for another week. Ardern said that if COVID-19 continues to be absent outside Auckland, the rest of the country will move to alert level 1.
As for Auckland, Ardern said the Cabinet will review the 2.5 alert level setting with the expectation of increasing social gathering limits from the current limit of 10. If that change is agreed upon, it will take effect on Wednesday 23 September.
“What we’ve always said, of course, is yes, the cases that we have, that’s what we track; we also look at the broader risk profile and what the model tells us. All of that helps inform the Director’s advice. General, “Ardern said.
“He says we are on the right track. Our plan, once again, is working. It is doing what we intended. We must always be a bit cautious because we are a country that has adopted a strategy of eliminating and then going to full freedoms, for what you must be careful that when you go to those full freedoms you are ready “.
The total number of active cases in New Zealand is now 77 to 44 in the community and 33 in the Auckland quarantine facility. There are four people in the hospital with COVID-19, and on Wednesday the country recorded a 25th death.
