New Zealand’s COVID-19 managed isolation facilities as 21,015 cases reported

WELLINGTON – Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) is beginning to scale down its operations, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said on Thursday as 21,015 new community cases were reported in New Zealand.

“With New Zealand now reopening to the world without the requirement to isolate for most, there is a significantly reduced demand for MIQ. This of course means that we no longer need the number of facilities we currently have,” Hipkins said in a statement.

By the end of June, 28 of the current 32 facilities will leave the MIQ network and return to being hotels, the minister said.

Among the new community infections reported on Thursday, 7,234 were in the largest city Auckland. Fifteen new cases of COVID-19 were detected at the New Zealand border, according to the Ministry of Health.

Read more: New Zealand reports 22,454 new community cases of COVID-19

New Zealand has reported 306,919 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, including 208,625 cases identified in the past 10 days and not yet classified as recovered.

New Zealand is currently at the highest Red settings under its COVID-19 Protection Framework. At Red settings, face masks become mandatory in many indoor environments and gatherings are limited to 100 people.