There are two additional cases of COVID-19 to report today, and the case we announced last night.
Of today’s cases, one involves the second managed isolation worker in Christchurch which is being formally added to our total today. One is a recently arrived case from managed isolation and the third is a recently identified historical case.
Today’s recently arrived case arrived from Singapore on 31 October and tested positive at around day 3. They are now in quarantine at our Auckland facility.
Today’s historical case arrived in New Zealand on 18 October from Japan. They tested positive at around day 12. Subsequent negative repeat PCR tests, high CT values and positive serology mean we can now be confident this is not a case involving a recent infection.
5 cases are now considered recovered, meaning our total number of active cases is 73.
Our total number of confirmed cases is now 1,615.
Yesterday our laboratories completed 7,171 tests for COVID-19, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 1,113,739.
Managed isolation cases in Christchurch
Last night the Ministry announced a second case involving a worker at the Sudima Christchurch Airport facility where international mariners are in managed isolation and quarantine.
This individual had very recently been tested as part of the routine testing for staff in the facility and returned a negative test.
As a result of this week’s first case, other staff at the isolation facility who worked relevant shifts were contacted and tested as appropriate. This is when the second case, who is a close workplace contact, was detected. They remain asymptomatic.
A push notification regarding the second case has been sent this morning to people who logged on with the COVID Tracer app at the same time as the person who briefly visited The Chemist Warehouse at the South City Mall between 3.52 pm and 4.03 pm on Friday 30 October.
The person had checked in using COVID Tracer – an important reminder for us all to keep using the app so the system can work quickly to identify people who may have been exposed.
In this case, the person was in the store for a very short period of time and didn’t have any close contact with other people during their time there, so the visit is regarded as very low risk and a ‘casual’ exposure event.
