Arrivals paused at MIQ hotels

New arrivals at two Auckland managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) hotels have been halted until the outcome of an inquiry into how staff working at the facilities contracted Covid-19.

The pause on guests affects the Grand Mercure and the Grand Millennium hotels.

The joint Ministry of Health and Managed Isolation and Quarantine Technical Advisory Group is looking at potential sources of transmission, including an investigation of ventilation systems.

The hotels stopped taking returnees on April 14 and will not take any more until the outcome of the review, expected at the end of the month, is known.

Since March, three staff members have tested positive at the Grand Millennium while the virus spread among a number of guests at the Grand Mercure.

The ventilation systems are suspected to have played a part in transmission.

Head of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Brigadier Jim Bliss said while the risk of spread through the ventilation systems was assessed as ‘‘very low’’, they were taking steps to make changes to the system.

‘‘As the Ministry of Health advised the Health Select Committee last week, we have learned over recent months that, with the new variants of the virus, aerosol transmission is playing a greater role than was observed initially,’’ Bliss said. ‘‘As the virus changes and adapts, so does MIQ, so a lot of work has been going into investigating the role ventilation may play in airborne transmissions.’’