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Photo: RNZ /Dom Thomas
According the latest MBIE managed isolation and quarantine daily 14-day forecast, spaces in MIQ facilities are extremely limited until March, but some may come available as travel plans changed.
MIQ facilities around the country had a combined operational capacity of 4500 rooms - in the next 14 days, 4299 of these rooms will be full with 5627 people staying in them.
MBIE said rooms were occupied for a minimum of 14 days and additional time was needed for cleaning and maintenance. This meant this full 14 day period was considered as opposed to room availability on any single day.
Rooms that were vacant on one day might be needed for an incoming flight the next day, so were not actually available.
Photo: RNZ /Dom Thomas
But it will be another month until the worker representatives are properly trained up and have actual legal powers to make the workplaces safer.
A unionist says she had been terrified early on for the low-paid - mostly Māori or Pasifika, often older cleaners, and other quarantine workers - when PPE was lacking. But that now, at last, government officials were meeting their legal obligations. The time it took to actually get through to them was far too long, said Unite Union s hotel organiser Shanna Reeder. It should have been top of the list. It should have been obvious.