4 New Cases Of COVID-19

There are four new cases of COVID-19 to report in New Zealand today.

Two are imported cases detected in MIQ facilities. The first is a male child and the second is a woman in her 20s - both arrived from India on August 23 and they are each a close contact of separate previously reported confirmed cases.

There are two new cases in the community both linked to the Auckland August cluster.

The first is a close contact of an existing confirmed case that has been epidemiologically linked to the cluster. The second is a household contact of a confirmed case linked to the Mt Roskill 
Evangelical Church sub-cluster. Both were already in isolation.

Since August 11, our contact tracing team has identified 3,224 close contacts of cases, of which 3,199 have been contacted and are self-isolating, and we are in the process of contacting the rest.

There are 70 people linked to the community cluster who remain in the Auckland quarantine facility, which includes 52 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their household contacts.

Today there are four people in hospital with COVID-19 – three are stable and in isolation on a ward - one in Middlemore and two in North Shore hospital. The fourth person is in Waikato Hospital in ICU.

There are two previously reported cases who are considered to have recovered today – both community cases.

With today’s four new cases, our total number of active cases is 118. Of those, 41 are imported cases in MIQ facilities, and 77 are community cases.

Our total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 is now 1,425, which is the number we report to the World Health Organization.

Yesterday our laboratories processed 3,991 tests for COVID-19, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 818,629.

Border testing

New rules for testing certain higher-risk workers at the border and in managed isolation and quarantine facilities are now in force, shifting surveillance testing at the border to a more routine pattern.

o Workers at Managed Quarantine Facilities and workers who transport people required to be in quarantine to and from the facility will be tested once every seven days 
o Workers at Managed Isolation Facilities and workers who transport people required to be in isolation to and from the facility will be tested once every 14 days 
o Workers in certain higher-risk occupations at the Ports of Auckland and the Port of Tauranga will be tested once every 14 days 
o Workers in certain higher-risk occupations at Auckland International Airport will be tested once every 14 days.

Testing is complementary to strict infection prevention and control measures including physical distancing and the use of PPE, and daily health checks.

NZ COVID Tracer

NZ COVID Tracer app registrations continue to increase and there are now 2,139,000 registered users. There have been 359,393 posters created.

The app has recorded 43,433,462 poster scans, and 2,477,964 manual diary entries.

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