17 Jun 2020

New Covid-19 cases: Health officials scramble to reach suspected contacts

From Checkpoint, 5:11 pm on 17 June 2020

Health authorities are scrambling to get in touch with 320 people to prevent Covid-19 spreading further than the two women who brought it back into the country.

The women were found to have the disease after getting a compassionate leave exemption to travel to Wellington from their managed isolation in Auckland.

They were not tested by health staff before they left, as they should have been. And it has also been revealed that the isolation testing the government says is crucial to the level one strategy is actually optional.

Health correspondent Rowan Quinn reports.