COVID-19 & vaccination update 25 August

There are 62 new cases of COVID-19 in the New Zealand community to confirm today. This brings the total number of cases in the community outbreak to 210. 

Of these 62 new cases, 36 are female and 26 are male. 40 of these are Pacific peoples, three are Māori, seven are Asian, five are European, and as yet, the ethnicity is unknown of seven.

The total number of community cases in Auckland is now 198 and 12 in Wellington. 

All of the cases have or are being transferred safely to a managed isolation facility, under strict infection prevention and control procedures, including the use of full PPE.

As previously indicated, it’s not unexpected to see a rise in daily case numbers at this stage. At its peak last year, New Zealand had a daily total of 89 new cases.

There are currently six epidemiologically-linked subclusters identified within this outbreak. The 2 largest clusters are the Birkdale Social Network cluster associated with Case A (approximately 36 confirmed cases), and a cluster associated with the AOG church in Mangere (approximately 105 confirmed cases). 

There is one new case in a recent returnee in a managed isolation facility.

New cases identified at the border

A case previously reported on 2 July 2021 has now been deemed historical.

The total number of active cases being managed in New Zealand is currently 246.

Since 1 January 2021, there have been 124 historical cases, out of a total of 985 cases.

Our total number of confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic is 2803.

Middlemore healthcare worker

As reported yesterday, a positive test result for a Middlemore Emergency Department staff member has been returned. The case is currently classified as under investigation and is not included in today’s tally.

As a precaution the staff member has been stood down and Public Health staff are currently investigating.

Currently, Middlemore’s assessment is that the public health risk is low as the staff member was asymptomatic, fully vaccinated, was detected through routine testing, wore appropriate PPE while at work, and the individual is reported to have taken all the appropriate precautions once notified.

Testing

Yesterday, 49,745 tests were processed across New Zealand.

Testing nationwide remains a priority in our assessment of spread and in determining the edges of the outbreak.

Testing centres in Auckland had another busy day yesterday with 22,735 swabs taken across Auckland, including 8,800 at community testing centres and around 13,800 at general practice and urgent care clinics.

There are 22 community testing centresavailable across Auckland today, including four restricted access testing centres that are by invitation-only for high-risk groups and to prioritise essential health care workers, six regular community testing centres and 12 pop-up testing centres.

A new pop-up community testing centre has opened at Mountfort Park in Manurewa today and the pop-up testing centre at Pukekohe showgrounds has been extended until 31 August.

All DHBs are ensuring there is good access to testing across the regions.

For up-to-date information on all testing locations, please visit

Healthpoint.co.nz.

The total number of COVID-19 tests processed by laboratories to date is 2,812,976.

The seven-day rolling average is 34,504.

New MIQ testing requirement

An additional testing requirement is being introduced to Managed Isolation Facilities.

From Wednesday 25 August, returnees whose room is on the same floor, and in the vicinity of a confirmed Day 0/1 or Day 3 case of COVID-19, will now also be tested at Day 6 or 7, in addition to their existing day 0/1, 3 and 12 tests.

This is a recommendation following the review of the Crowne Plaza case.

Wastewater testing

COVID-19 was detected in a sample collected on Sunday 22 August from Warkworth. This follows a non-detection on 21 August and a previous positive result on 17 August 2021. The genome sequencing result has confirmed that the RNA detected is associated with this August Delta outbreak (reported earlier). This supports there being a case connected to this outbreak in the Warkworth catchment.

In Auckland, COVID-19 was detected in samples collected on Sunday 22 August and Monday 23 August from all eight sites tested in Auckland, except for the Monday sample from North Shore (Rosedale, Albany) which was not available for analysis.

In the Wellington region, the virus has only been detected in samples collected from Moa Point, Wellington (20, 21, 22 and 23 August) and may reflect known cases shedding in the catchment.

There are no positive wastewater testing results in the most recent samples collected outside the Warkworth, Auckland, and Wellington regions.

Contact tracing

As of 9am today, 20,383 individual contacts have been identified and 62% have had a test. The majority of these contacts are close contacts.

Locations of interest

There are now over 480 locations of interest listed on the

Ministry’s website

. We are continuing to update this information regularly every 2 hours between 8am and 8pm.

The Ministry’s website also includes advice on what to do if you were at any of these locations at the time when you could potentially have been exposed. Alerts are being sent to people who scanned in using the COVID-19 Tracer App at locations during the relevant times.

If you were at a location of interest at the specified time, please self-isolate and call Healthline on 0800 358 5453 for advice on testing.

COVID-19 vaccine update

Yesterday 56,872 first doses were given, and 23,161 second doses were given, bringing yesterday’s total doses administered to 80,033. This is the biggest daily total to date by more than 16,000 doses.

More than 2.93 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to date. Of these, 1.88 million are first doses and more than 1.05 million are second doses.

More than 167,000 Māori have received their first vaccination. Of these, more than 96,000 have also had their second vaccinations.

More than 109,000 doses have been administered to Pacific peoples. Of these, more than 65,000 have also received their second doses.

NZ COVID Tracer

NZ COVID Tracer now has 3,065,491 registered users.

Poster scans have reached 329,428,701and users have created 14,194,933 manual diary entries.

There have been 703,870 scans in the 24 hours to midday yesterday.

© Scoop Media