Jacinda Ardern says she has found it extremely hard denying friends and family the right to visit dying relatives during lockdown.
During Tuesday's briefing the Prime Minister was asked about the decision to reconsider the cases of international travellers asking for an exception to their mandatory 14-day quarantine so they can visit their ill relatives.
She says the circumstances around letting families visit their ill relatives was "incredibly difficult".
"I can't imagine being in that situation," she says.
"In fact, one of the things I have found the hardest about the lockdown we have been in is the loss of people's friends and family during that time."
International traveller Oliver Christiansen has so far been the only person to be allowed to visit his dying father after his case was taken to the High Court.
Following Christiansen's win, on Monday Ardern ordered the Minister of Health David Clark to review all 24 cases of Kiwis asking for an exemption from quarantine.
During Tuesday's daily briefing Ardern was asked about whether she agreed with the way the applications had been handled.
"Ultimately it is the right decision to go back and look at each of them again and I am pleased that the Ministry of Health are doing that at the request of the Minister of Health. That is the right thing to do," she said.
She said the criteria for allowing the exemption to happen would be dependent on the "degree to which it could be conducted safely".
"You see the conditions for the person who made a case to the court were very, very specific about private residents, private travel and so the Ministry of Health are really having to weigh up some quite complex situations and making sure they are also weighing up keeping other New Zealanders safe as well."
On Monday Ardern had incorrectly told reporters 18 people had been granted exemptions to see ill relatives.
The Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield told The AM Show on Tuesday that exemptions have been granted on other grounds, however.
"We have had several hundred requests for exemptions for people who have flown into the country and are in either quarantine or in managed isolation at the airports and hotels around the place.
"Of those, there have been 18 exemptions granted, mostly on medical grounds. For example, people who have medical conditions so they can't really be looked after in that hotel setting," he said.
"We have had a total of 24 inquiries or applications for exemption on compassionate grounds such as the one the judge has made a ruling on and none of those have been granted or hadn't been until last Friday when the family took it for a judicial review."
There were no new reported cases of COVID-19 on Monday and Tuesday.
