Contact tracers are racing to find out if anyone was exposed to a Covid-19 patient who busted out of MIQ.

Police in PPE arrested the man this afternoon at a house in Otahuhu - almost 10-kilometres from the quarantine facility he'd been confined in.

It's thought he fled the Ellerslie Novotel and Ibis facility about one-am.

He has been charged under the Health Order, and bailed back to MIQ by an Auckland District Court judge, after appearing by video-link.

Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall says public health teams are interviewing the escapee.

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