Covid-19 Omicron outbreak: Hipkins says he won't apologise to Auckland women behind Northland's snap lockdown

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins won't be apologising for wrongly accusing the two Northland women who prompted a mini-lockdown last year of using false information to leave Auckland.

When asked today if the Government would apologise to the women, Hipkins said he had not been given any information to suggest that any of the claims he made or information he shared at that time were wrong.

His comments come after police confirmed they would not be charging two women due to a lack of evidence supporting the claim the women obtained their required travel documents by deception.

Northland was surprised by an unexpected lockdown announced late on October 8 after one of the women tested positive in Whangārei.

For 12 days, the region was held to "ransom" as public health officials and police attempted to connect the dots about the woman's journey.

Then came the news she had travelled with a companion who also had tested positive for Covid-19 but had gone into hiding.

Police eventually caught up with her at a New Lynn address, but it wasn't much comfort to Northlanders as the pair refused to co-operate with police.

Instead, officers and public health workers had to rely on CCTV footage, bank card transactions, and cellphone records to trace their movements to hotels, shops, petrol stations, and a popular coastal campsite.

Since then police have carried out a thorough investigation – that was also the subject of a legal review - into the pair's journey across the alert level 4 boundary.

A police spokesperson said they "determined that there was insufficient evidence to prove that the women obtained their Business Travel Documents by deception or that they crossed the Alert Level Border for a purpose other than what was stated on those travel documents.

"As a result, there is insufficient evidence to commence a prosecution and the matter has been filed."