NZ Health Officials Were Told No More Justification for Quarantine System in November

A general view of the Rydges Hotel which is being used as a quarantine hotel in Auckland, New Zealand, on July 10, 2020. Hannah Peters/Getty Images

An internal memo dating back to Nov. 12, 2021, from the New Zealand Ministry of Health advised officials that there was no longer any justification to continue the country’s Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ).

The advice from the memo, obtained by RNZ, was not adhered to, with the winding down of the quarantine system beginning three months later on March 10.

The document, written by then-Director of Public Health Caroline McElnay to the Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the risk of international arrivals transmitting COVID-19 was “no longer higher than the domestic transmission risk.”

McElnay asked Bloomfield if he agreed with the statement, which would mean that “Managed Isolation for border returnees would no longer be justified on public health grounds as the ‘default’ for people travelling to New Zealand.”

The Epoch Times has not seen the memo.

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Acting Prime Minister Grant Robertson defended the government’s decision for the quarantine system to remain until the end of February.

He said MIQ would have ended in January if not for the Omicron wave in late-January, which had led to the extension of the MIQ program to allow for higher vaccination rates.

“Had we moved quicker we would have had a significantly harder job bringing MIQ back,” he told Newstalk ZB.

COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said that from his knowledge, the memo was not final and was still being circulated for peer review.

“Quite a lot happened in that time; so we made that announcement in later November that we would be removing MIQ for people coming into the country,” he told the AM show.

However, Hipkins noted that two days later, the World Health Organisation had declared Omicron a variant of concern, prompting the government to further monitor the need for MIQ.

“The suggestion that we did nothing for the serval months between when this memo was first written and when the border finally reopened isn’t actually correct. Things changed during that time,” he said.

COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins speaks during a COVID-19 response update in Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, on Nov. 24, 2021. Mark Mitchell/Pool/Getty Images

Hipkins added he didn’t know why the memo wasn’t released publicly and didn’t think there was a “great conspiracy” to keep the information private.

ACT New Zealand Party Leader David Seymour called on the prime minister to apologise to all the citizens who had been stranded overseas due to MIQ.

“[What the] documents obtained by media show ... is backed up by documents previously obtained by ACT that also show advice to the government confirmed MIQ was redundant,” he said.

“The government owes all those who were stuck in limbo overseas an apology. They were the victims of a costly and cruel policy that wasn’t even doing any good.”

The most prominent example is of New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis, who had ended up contacting the Taliban for help after she was refused entry back to her home country due to various restrictions from the “MIQ lottery.”

RNZ said the ministry initially refused to make the document public, requested under the Official Information Act, until the Ombudsman stepped in and forced their hand.