How long do COVID-19 cases have to stay in quarantine - 14 days, right?
Surprisingly, no.
After Newshub revealed on Wednesday night the man who allegedly escaped from quarantine (MIQ) was allowed out after 10 days, the Ministry of Health insisted that's long been the policy.
But not according to the Government's own quarantine website.
After being chased back to quarantine, the man who allegedly escaped spent just 10 days there, surprising even the support staff.
"They were like, 'Eh? Are you sure you're not escaping again?' I was like, 'Nah they're letting me out and they were like, 'That's weird, you're supposed to stay in here for 14 [days].'"
When a woman who recently lost her partner heard that, she was furious.
"[I'm] very angry and upset and hurt," she told Newshub.
Her partner's children flew back from Australia to see their dad before he passed away. They applied for emergency exemptions and were denied, and on day nine of their stay he died.
They never got to say goodbye.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield insisted 10-day quarantining is the norm, but the Government's own quarantine website - which is different from the managed isolation site - is clear, in black and white.
It says there's a 14-day minimum stay in quarantine. The website hasn't been updated since December last year.
Newshub searched older versions of that webpage. It was exactly the same in September last year too, meaning 14 days has been mandatory for at least a year.
"It's 14 days in MIQ - you go into MIQ for 14 days when you arrive in New Zealand," said National's COVID-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop.
"If you test positive in the community, you're into quarantine for 14 days. It's the two-week period - people know that."
Now it's actually going to be 14 days - a Delta upgrade - although in the Delta hotspot Auckland, only if there's capacity.
But based on what the Government's been assuring the public and its own rules, it should have been doing that all along.
