Woman in two isolation breakouts

A woman i s likely to face police charges after attempting to abscond twice in two days from a managed isolation facility in Auckland.

A security guard intercepted a woman attempting to abscond from the Grand Millennium Hotel through a fire exit about 1am yesterday.

“As a result of police speaking to the woman and making enquiries it was established that the woman had absconded the previous night on October 8 between 1.07am and returned at 3.09am,” said head of managed isolation and quarantine Darryn Webb.

He said security weren’t guarding that exit that night.

“Unfortunately a local decision was taken which meant that those guards were elsewhere on that evening,” Webb said.

CCTV shows the woman walked around the inner city.

“Police are continuing to review CCTV footage to account for her movements during this time and charges are likely to be laid.”

She was swabbed yesterday and tested negative.

The woman arrived from Dubai on October 7. She also tested negative on October 1 in a pre- flight test and was cleared to fly. Her next test is scheduled for today, which will coincide with her routine day 3 test.

A spokesman at the Grand Millennium referred media queries to the Ministry of Health.

Webb said interviews and investigations were continuing in order to identify the nature of any contact with individuals outside the managed isolation facility.

“A permanent security presence has been established outside her room to ensure she remains at the facility.” Webb said that while absconding incidents were rare, “we treat them extremely seriously”.

“While I’m confident that we have strong security measures in place, these hotels are not prisons.”

There have been nearly 60,000 people through managed isolation and quarantine and only 10 incidents involving 14 people absconding from managed isolation, Webb said.

Meanwhile there were t wo new cases of Covid- 19 in managed i solation and no new community cases announced yesterday.

Both new cases arrived from India on September 26 and returned a positive test on their day- 12 swab.

NZ’s total number of active cases is now 41 — all imported cases.