The Vincent Residences apartments and the Grand Millennium Hotel. Photo / Michael Craig
The Vincent Residences apartments and the Grand Millennium Hotel. Photo / Michael Craig
People who live at the Vincent Residences, the heart of the latest Covid-19 scare, have been told they can "return to normal" after all outstanding tests returned negative results.
A letter from the Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) dated November 15 said all people linked to the residences, and not associated with the case, have tested negative.
It's a moment of relief for the residents who were told to self-isolate earlier in the week.
"If you are a health worker, you can now return to work," the letter says.
The case is also the centre of a debate between who said what during the Ministry of Health's review of the woman's movements.
The Ministry of Health told the public that the student called in sick to her workplace, but ended up working after talking to her manager.
Her employers, A-Z Collections on High St, strongly deny that their employee ever told them she was sick or tried to call in sick.
Through lawyers, the store owners released a statement from the student backing them.
When the Herald put questions to the ministry as to whether it accepted the version of events presented by the shop owners, it said it stood by the information it released.
The student's first language is Mandarin and said a translator was not present when she first spoke to health officials.
But a spokesperson for the ministry said ARPHS had confirmed "a Chinese-speaking nurse sat in on the interviews and offered to interpret, but that the case opted to speak in English".
The neighbour of the AUT student has been confirmed as a case of Covid-19 after an investigation.
The neighbour has been classed as a close contact of the AUT student and has been in the Auckland quarantine facility since November 12.
