No New Community Cases; 3 Cases Of COVID-19 In Managed Isolation
There are no new community cases to report today. There are 3 new positive cases of COVID-19 to report in managed isolation.
Grand Millennium managed isolation
facility Auckland
The investigation into
how a cleaner at the Grand Millennium, referred to as Case
A, was exposed to COVID-19 is continuing. Case A and a
household member whose result is under investigation remain
at the Auckland quarantine facility.
The household member has returned a second negative test at Day 5, which reinforces the belief that their initial weak positive test was either a false positive or an early and fleeting mild infection that has now passed. This person continues to be managed as a close contact and is not considered to be a confirmed case at this stage.
All close and casual contacts of Case A have returned negative initial tests. They are due to have their Day 5 tests today and tomorrow. Results of those will come in over the weekend.
Grand Mercure managed isolation
facility Auckland
Yesterday we announced
that as part of investigations into a recent Day 12 positive
case at the Grand Mercure managed isolation facility in
Auckland, health officials are now looking at the
possibility of a transmission within this
facility.
Contact tracing teams are contacting the 250 returnees who have left the facility since March 10; asking them to get tested immediately and remain at home until they have had a negative test result returned.
As at 9am this morning, 193 of those 250 people have been contacted and the remaining people are being followed up today. If you are one of these people, please get in touch with Healthline.
We also yesterday put in place immediate additional steps including additional onsite testing and exit tests for all returnees leaving the facility. The public health risk from the Grand Mercure is considered low.
COVID-19
reporting
There are 3 new positive cases
of COVID-19 to report in managed isolation. The seven-day
rolling average of new cases detected at the border is
5.
The total number of active cases in New Zealand today is 74.
Our total number of confirmed cases is 2,123.
Since 1 January 2021, there have been 41 historical cases, out of a total of 311 cases.
New border case details
Arrival date | From | Via | Positive test day/reason | Managed isolation/quarantine location |
9 Mar* | India | United Arab Emirates | Around day 15 / contact of a case | Auckland |
20 Mar* | India | United Arab Emirates | Around day 5 / contact of a case | Auckland |
21 Mar | India | United Arab Emirates | Around day 3 / routine testing | Auckland |
*Both cases, part of separate travel bubbles, are contacts of travel companions that have tested positive.
Testing information
On Thursday, 7,117 tests were processed. The seven-day rolling average up to yesterday is 4,944 tests processed.
The total number of tests processed by laboratories to date is 1,875,086.
For up-to-date information on testing locations in Auckland, visit
https://www.arphs.health.nz/
and for all testing locations nationwide, visit the
Healthpoint
website.
NZ COVID Tracer
NZ COVID Tracer now has 2,764,505 registered users.
Poster scans have reached 231,767,115 and users have now created more than 8,770,858 manual diary entries.
It’s incredibly important we all scan the QR codes wherever we see them, as the more we all scan, the safer we’ll all be. If you can’t scan then please keep a record of where you have been. The NZ COVID Tracer app is one way to do this through the manual entry option.
A reporting error meant COVID Tracer app data in yesterday’s media release was incorrect, and QR code scan numbers were under-reported by approximately 300,000 scans. The data reporting is being manually corrected. The data reported today is accurate.
Ministry of Health updates
The next scheduled updates will be on Saturday and Sunday.