From February 2, all people coming to New Zealand from mainland China are expected by the Ministry of Health to self-isolate for a period of 14 days from the time they left China.
People are expected to self-isolate if they also come into contact with someone with a confirmed case of coronavirus.
Port Otago chief executive Kevin Winders said the company’s three staff members chose to self-isolate after coming into contact with a family member who had visited China.
‘‘We’ve had three of our own staff that we’ve had to move to voluntary [quarantine] ... 14 days at their house in isolation,’’ Mr Winders said.
‘‘Three of our staff that have had family [travelling] from China within the last little period.
‘‘Clearly, we’ve had to isolate them at their homes so we’ve got a number of staff working from home in isolation for 14 days.
‘‘We look forward to getting them back in 14 days.’’
The port was lucky those staff members chose to raise their concerns before coming to work, Mr Winders said.
‘‘We prompted our staff and raised the issue with them and clearly it prompted them ... we worked through the potential issues with the individual staff members and we’ve got three that have gone into self isolation for 14 days.
‘‘There’s no risk to our team here of any cross-contamination.
‘‘It was good, proactive stuff from our team members so I was really pleased about that.’’
The master of any vessel coming into Port Otago had to declare whether they had crew or passengers that had been in mainland China in the past 14 days, Mr Winders said.
The vessels first had to satisfy port staff they had taken the right steps to manage and isolate those people, he said.
‘‘So far, that’s been working very well.
‘‘In fact, we’ve had a number of vessels notify that they’ve had crew or passengers that have been in isolation and it was good to find that out and be able to work with the vessels and the shipping lines to ensure that our staff have been safe.’’
Trade had not changed much, Mr Winders said, describing it as ‘‘business as usual’’ for containers and cruise ships.
That was not including the Ovation of the Seas, which had its visit to Dunedin last weekend cancelled due to strong winds.
There was a lull in logging as exporters struggled to get product into China during the extended holiday period.
There were ships booked to move logs at the end of the month but it was too early to know if that would occur, he said.
