“If the Government knew at 7.30pm last night that a Sydney tourist with COVID-19 had visited Wellington, why did it take nearly 12 hours to confirm this with the public?” Asks ACT Leader David Seymour

“News started break last night about the COVID case but only because the Australian media was reporting is. The Ministry of Health didn’t let us know until 6am. It’s frankly unacceptable.

“Why are we being drip fed places of interest throughout the morning? Why wasn’t the Ministry of Health able to identify these places and let us know immediately?

“People who have been at locations of interest have gone about their business for an entire morning when they should have been isolating.

“COVID has been around long enough and we’ve had enough lockdowns that we should know by now what to do.

“We should have been alerted last night and the places of interest should have been released immediately. This is why ACT has been calling for compulsory scanning.

“The cost of lockdowns and going into Level 2 are enormous for businesses. Just look at ASB Showgrounds in Auckland who went into liquidation yesterday.

“My thoughts are with Wellington businesses who will take a big hit from a weekend in Level 2.

“The next 48 hours will be critical, we will either be lucky, locked down, or able to say the Government’s response has actually improved. Wellingtonians and all New Zealanders will be desperately hoping for the latter.

“At some point our luck will run out, unless we have good management.

“ACT has been saying for nearly a year now, we need a much more sophisticated, tech-enabled response to COVID.”

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