National and ACT are calling for the Government to be more transparent after the Prime Minister knew a positive Covid-19 case had escaped an MIQ facility in Ellerslie, Auckland but didn't alert the public.
Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said the Prime Minister knew about the incident before Thursday's 1pm Covid-19 update.
“It’s really important to remember that at that point it was a live police operation and the police were actually in the process of going to get the person,” Robertson said.
ACT Leader David Seymour said he believes the public deserve to know about these incidents.
“The Prime Minister’s been late to many press conferences saying she needed all the details; did she not think this was important enough for the public to know.” Seymour said.
“They could’ve avoided the person if necessary and reported to police if they sighted him.”
National's Covid-19 Response spokesperson Chris Bishop said he was disappointed the Prime Minister didn’t tell the public earlier.
“She knew about the fact someone had absconded and had been on the run at that point for 13 hours and decided not to tell the public even though she knew about it,” he said.
Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker told 1 NEWS he believes the public health risk with this incident is low.
“They were in the community for only a short period of time, their movements appear to be very well established so it should be easy to rapidly identify all their contacts,” Baker said.
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