It comes as New Zealand recorded no new cases of Covid-19 but as health officials and the Prime Minister urge caution over whether the country can move down to level 2 as early as Wednesday next week, possibly with a major domestic travel ban eased.
Twenty-four New Zealanders returning from overseas had requested an early exemption from 14-day quarantine so they could visit dying relatives - and the Ministry of Health had refused each one, Bloomfield confirmed today.
"They haven't granted any as at last Friday. The quarantine and self-isolation arrangements... are part of our broader attempts to really get on top of this virus," the director general of health told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking.
On Friday, a judge granted Oliver Christiansen the right to see his father after Christiansen rushed home from the UK - and now Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has ordered a review into the other 23 cases.
Bloomfield told Hosking that significant restrictions had applied to all New Zealanders, not just to people coming in at the borders who had been in self-isolation or quarantined - and the latter were higher risk.
He did not know if any of the 24 had tested positive for Covid-19.
Bloomfield denied Hosking's assertion that the Ministry of Health had no heart and was treating the pandemic as a "medical experiment".
"Far from it... the people who work at the Ministry of Health have a heart for people and they worry about people's wellbeing. They are doing their best to protect all New Zealanders."
Staff got out of bed every day and were working seven days a week to ensure the health of Kiwis, he said.
Covid-19 was not the only focus - the ministry had its eye on many issues including mental health, he said.
Christiansen's father lay dying and asking: "Where is my boy? Where is my boy?"
But up until the judicial decision on Friday, Christiansen couldn't see him - he was subject to the Government's mandatory 14-day isolation period after arriving in New Zealand on April 23 on a flight from the United Kingdom.
Christiansen spoke to the Herald about his "eight days of battling and about 36 hours to spare" before his father Anthony Christiansen, who had brain cancer, died.
Asked by Hosking whether staying in level 3 with zero cases yesterday was "laughable", Bloomfield disagreed.
"Many many Kiwis accept that the position we are in now is because we have put in the hard yards - we are not quite there yet."
