Covid 19 coronavirus: Why key questions were unanswered after more than a week

ANALYSIS

No hold ups, oversights or obstruction. It actually takes this long - over a week - to find out how many of the 55 people granted compassionate leave weren't tested when they should have been.

Since June 9, a negative test and at least a week in isolation were meant to be mandatory before compassionate leave from managed isolation could be granted. But that has only been the practice since June 16.

Both of those rules were bent for two Covid-infected sisters who drove from Auckland to Wellington , but who weren't tested until after they arrived in Wellington.

The subsequent outrage was understandable, given what should have happened, the sacrifices everyone has already made, and the obvious risk of one case quickly turning into dozens.

That outrage then heightened as stories of broken protocols came forward. Mixing and mingling at isolation facilities. Testing being voluntary when it should have been compulsory. Leave for a funeral when that was meant to be banned . Even runaways .

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The case of the two sisters begged the obvious question: How many others have been let out early without a test? Each of them could pose a risk of a second wave.

That question has been asked everyday - by journalists, the Opposition, even Ministers' offices - since June 16, when the sisters' positive results were revealed.

The answer isn't just about giving us a better sense of the health risk. It's also about the depth of failure that has occurred at the border, which feeds into the level of confidence in the ministry, health chief Ashley Bloomfield, the Government and the Prime Minister.

Those border measures are critical. With no signs of community transmission, the greatest Covid danger to New Zealand are the thousands of people returning home from overseas.

You'd think it would be essential to collect their information and put it all into a single database or an integrated system - contact details, symptoms, daily health check results, test results, if any.

That hasn't happened.

Bloomfield was clear today that there hasn't been a cock-up. It has taken so long because health officials have had to match names and dates of birth from their systems with information at isolation facilities.

There was another simple way to find out that appears to have been overlooked.

All of the 55 people granted compassionate leave have been tracked down and referred for testing. Yet Bloomfield had no answer when questioned why they hadn't been asked, when contacted: "Were you tested before you left managed isolation?"

This isn't the first information failure for the ministry. They don't know how many healthcare workers were infected in the workplace . Their regional public health units all used different IT systems .

Only late tonight were we told the level of failure. Only four of the 55 were tested before leaving managed isolation, and two of the four were tested the day they left, meaning the results were unlikely to have been known when they left.

Thankfully, 39 have tested negative, seven will not be tested because they are either children or for medical reasons, and one was wrongly counted because their leave application was withdrawn.

Of the remaining eight, four are awaiting test results, and four are still to be tested.

The ministry is still scrambling to find more than 2000 people who pose different levels of risk.

After the 55 people, the next most at-risk are the 190 people who potentially came into contact with the two sisters while they were at the Novotel Ellerslie from June 6 to June 13. Only three of the 190 people are still to be contacted.

And work is continuing to contact all of the 2159 people who left managed isolation facilities other than the Novotel Ellerslie between June 9 and June 16. These people should have all been tested before they left, but Bloomfield said today they had simply been "offered" a test.

They are considered very low risk as they have all completed the 14-day isolation, and even if they've had it or have it, they may not be infectious.

Chasing up these people is precautionary, Bloomfield said, because 99 per cent of people who show symptoms do so by day 12, leaving two days of breathing room.

Bloomfield doesn't have a sense of how many of the 2159 people were tested before they left managed isolation.

Earlier today he didn't know how many of the 55 people were allowed to leave without a test. He would have liked to have known earlier. As would we all.