New Zealand officials admit two women with Covid-19 met friends

Health officials in New Zealand have made an embarrassing U-turn in the case of two women recently arrived from Britain who were infected with Covid-19 and allowed to leave quarantine without being tested – admitting the pair met up with friends when they should not have done.

The initial blunder by officials who failed to test the women for the virus before they were released early from quarantine on compassionate grounds was labelled an “unacceptable failure” by the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, on Wednesday.

She added that New Zealand’s defence force would now oversee the quarantine of new arrivals and audit the quarantine process.

But the situation appeared to go from bad to worse on Wednesday night, when it emerged that contrary to earlier statements from health officials – who said the women had “done everything right” after they were released from quarantine, and had not come into contact with any members of the public – the pair had briefly met two friends.

The government is still scrambling for answers about why the women were not tested before being allowed to leave an Auckland hotel after they arrived from the UK on 7 June. They had received a compassionate exemption to the compulsory 14-day isolation period for returning travellers in order to visit a dying relative 400 miles (650km) away in Wellington.

The compassionate dispensation policy has been suspended.

The pair made the eight-hour drive in a private vehicle on 13 June, before one of the women became unwell and both were diagnosed with Covid-19 on Monday.

In a news release on Wednesday night, the health ministry said “additional information” had revealed the women got lost driving out of Auckland and met briefly with the friends who had loaned them their car, to get directions. The women and their friends had “limited physical contact” for about five minutes.

The statement was issued only after an opposition lawmaker made claims in parliament that the pair had not made their journey without stopping. An Auckland gym owner, one of whose members had been one of those in contact with the women, also posted a detailed comment on Facebook about the events before health officials confirmed them.

Three hundred and 20 people who are regarded as “close contacts” of the women are being traced, and they will be urged to get tested. Close contacts could include passengers on their flight to New Zealand and other quarantined travellers at their Auckland hotel, as well as hotel staff and flight crew. The women were in isolation with a relative, officials said.

The statement, which was not attributed to a particular person, urged the public to “remember that the two women were distressed” when they made the trip to Wellington.

“It is not uncommon for information and details to evolve … where there is heightened emotion, intense grief and stress,” the statement said.

Earlier, Todd Muller, the country’s opposition leader, decried the failure to test the women as “clumsy and totally inappropriate”.

“I’m as furious as I suspect most New Zealanders are this morning,” said the leader of the centre-right National party in a Radio New Zealand interview. “We have systems in place that we expect to be followed and they simply weren’t.” Muller said David Clark, the health minister, should be sacked.

Only New Zealanders, their families, and essential workers are currently permitted to enter the country, which has no other domestic restrictions in place. New arrivals are supposed to remain in managed isolation for 14 days, during which they should be tested twice.

The government had earlier faced complaints it was callous to deny people the chance to visit dying relatives.

On Wednesday, Ardern said the dispensations would be halted until a “disciplined and rigorous” process was in place to manage them.

Ardern said the government had come under pressure from many quarters to relax the quarantine rules. “It may be a hard and unpopular decision to take, but it is the right one for the country,” she said.

The two new cases came a week after the country celebrated being free of the coronavirus, and the government lifted all restrictions on daily life, leaving only strict border controls in place.

There have been fewer than 1,500 confirmed cases and 22 deaths from the virus, and the government’s swift and stringent lockdown drew international praise. But scientists said the fresh diagnoses showed how easily a “second wave” could spread.

“These two new cases illustrate very vividly how quickly rules and guidelines can unravel when they collide with real life,” said Amanda Kvalsvig, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago, Wellington.

“We’re now in a situation where potentially hundreds of people have travelled for several hours in an enclosed space with someone who was infectious,” she said.

Some staying in managed isolation at the same hotel as the women have told reporters they were not tested during their stay – or even upon leaving. It was also not known whether others were granted compassionate exemptions to quarantine without being tested.

The health ministry has not responded to written questions from the Guardian about whether officials planned to recall others for testing, or how many returning travellers might not have been

Clark was asked on Wednesday why officials had not ascertained that one of the women had been suffering from Covid-19 symptoms before she left quarantine. “As I understand it, the woman had a pre-existing condition, something that meant that what she was experiencing was something she expected to experience,” he said.