A person in managed isolation was granted leave to visit a patient in Christchurch Hospital yesterday.
In a statement, The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) Manged Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) unit says it considers requests for exemptions for guests to leave MIQ facilities for a period of time, for a range of reasons during their 14 day stay.
“This can be to access healthcare or for other reasons,” MBIE says.
“All guests leaving MIQ facilities with exemptions have a transport plan which our Infection, Prevention and Control (IP&C) teams have input into and the place they are visiting is involved in the planning.
“These plans include the provision of IP&C guidelines such as the appropriate PPE to be used for the duration of the exemption. Guests leaving MIQ facilities are required to return negative Covid-19 tests."
MBIE confirmed an MIQ guest was granted an exemption to visit a patient in hospital yesterday, adding that the protocols listed above were followed.
“When a guest is visiting one of our facilities, our IP&C team are able to be on site when the guest arrives and this occurred yesterday to ensure the appropriate safety measures were in place and followed.”
Canterbury DHB also confirmed to the NZ Herald the visit took place at Christchurch Hospital, claiming the person was not visiting a patient who was critical or dying.
The news comes as the Ministry of Health today announced a weak Covid-19 positive result from wastewater in Auckland's Papatoetoe was detected late last week.
The result does "not pose a risk to the community", according to the Ministry of Health.
"A weak positive test result was detected on Friday in routine wastewater sampling at the site linked to Papatoetoe, which has been assessed as not posing a risk to the community, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
"The most likely explanation for the weak positive detection is continued shedding of the virus from the recovered Covid-19 cases from the February cluster who have returned home from the Auckland quarantine facility.
"We know that people who have recently had Covid-19 may continue to shed fragments of the virus for some weeks after they have recovered, without being infectious to others. Wastewater sampling can detect these fragments, which are not infectious and their presence is not considered a risk to the community."
The Ministry of Health says today's negative wastewater results from the same area "provides good evidence" to support the theory laid out above.
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