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The wife and children of Kiwi basketballer Tom Abercrombie have been granted an exemption to stay in their $3 million home to carry out their time in managed isolation.
The move comes after the Breakers star's wife Monique-Raquel Abercrombie complained publicly, on social media, about the state of the managed isolation and quarantine hotel room they were placed in - reportedly a facility near the Auckland International Airport.
After the complaint, the family was allowed to carry out the remainder of their 14-day managed isolation period at their multimillion-dollar home in one of Auckland's top suburbs, according to Stuff.
It is not known exactly how many days the family spent at the hotel facility before being allowed to go home.
It is understood a number of the children are high-needs.
Residents on the street told Stuff that Ministry of Health officials had alerted them that their neighbours were in isolation.
An official MIQ notice has also been posted to a gate outside, telling people not to cross the boundaries of the property and that all deliveries had to be contactless.
There have been a few cases where recent returnees have been allowed to carry out their two-week managed isolation at home, instead of at a MIQ facility.
Anyone arriving from overseas has to isolate for 14 days. The majority of people do so in a managed isolation facility. Photo / Alex Burton
Those have been granted on medical grounds - including a case reported last August, when two people who recently returned from overseas were allowed to isolate at their own house in a suburb in South Auckland.
Exemptions are rare
MIQ officials have always maintained that exemptions from managed isolation are very rare and are approved in "very few circumstances", according to its website.
"Applications for exemptions are considered on a case-by-case basis and the threshold for approval is very high.
"An exemption will only be approved where we can be confident that the health risk of transmission is very low."
The site says that most exemptions are granted when people need to join unaccompanied minors in managed isolation, people in transit or people with medical needs that require hospital-level care.
If an exemption is granted to leave managed isolation at any point, returnees still need to complete the minimum of two weeks in isolation from the time they touched down into New Zealand.
The other exemption - dubbed as an "exceptional circumstance" by MIQ - is when someone is granted the chance to visit a dying relative.
Such cases are only approved when the public health risk is assessed to be very low and can be managed, the website says.
"In a small number of cases, exemptions are approved for a temporary period and you will need to return to the managed isolation facility to complete your 14 days."
