A sick passenger on a flight from Dubai today forced the plane to wait on the tarmac at Auckland Airport as health officials scrambled to respond.
Auckland Airport confirmed that a passenger on Emirates flight EK448 from Dubai "was unwell and the ill traveller protocol was triggered".
"This protocol is a well-established multi-agency process to effecting monitor, assess and manage ill travellers arriving on planes and ships into New Zealand,
a spokeswoman said.
The sick passenger was now in the hands of Ministry of Health officials.
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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced yesterday that any person from any country, excluding the Pacific islands, would be required to self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival to the country. The restrictions take effect from midnight tonight.
Ardern also encouraged all New Zealanders to avoid all non-essential travel overseas.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today that the Government and the police can enforce self-isolation.
And she says the Government's economic package, to be announced on Tuesday, will be the most significant one-off injection into the economy of her entire tenure as Prime Minister.
Yesterday Ardern announced that any person from any country, excluding the Pacific islands, is now required to self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival to the country, and she encouraged all New Zealanders to avoid all non-essential travel overseas.
As well as affecting thousands of people's travel plans, the move is expected to significantly impact Kiwis' jobs and New Zealand economy.
This morning Ardern sought to calm fears about whether people would self-isolate properly, saying that the 10,500 New Zealanders who had done it so far had been overly compliant, with some staying home for more than 14 days.
But she said authorities, including police, had the power to quarantine people at a medical facility and station staff at the door.
That power had not been used so far, she told TVNZ's Q+A this morning.
The Government has been constantly looking at global developments, and the new restrictions unveiled on Saturday were the next step to "go hard" to flatten the curve.
The goal was to avoid a large-scale community spread of the virus, and the new travel restrictions were about keeping pressure off the public health system as the number of positive cases rose.