There are four cases of COVID-19 to report in New Zealand today, all in managed isolation.
One involves a recent arrival and three are classified as historical.
There are no new cases in the community.
Firstly, we want to provide an update around the Auckland community case announced yesterday.
It’s really encouraging news that overnight, whole genome sequencing from this case has indicated an identical genetic profile to the sequence found in the Auckland managed isolation worker we’ve been referring to as Case A.
In addition to this, testing of three close contacts have come back negative – a work contact and two social contacts.
Now we have this information, we can have greater assurance around the nature of this case.
Working with our public health officials in Auckland, we are now investigating the source of any potential link between the movements of these two cases, people they may have met or places they may have visited.
Testing
Yesterday there was increased demand for testing across Auckland’s testing network – this includes Community Testing Centres, general practice and urgent care clinics. The two pop-ups in the central city were busy yesterday and it’s the same today.
Four additional testing stations have been stood up; City Centre Community Testing Centre; Victoria Park Community Testing Centre; The Doctors QuayMed Britomart Community Testing Centre and Wynyard Quarter Carpark Community Testing Centre.
Existing Community Testing Centres and GP Clinics around the greater Auckland area continue to provide testing services and report steady volumes.
A full list of testing sites in Auckland is available on the Auckland Regional Public Health Service website.
Anyone in the Auckland area, and indeed throughout New Zealand, who has cold or flu symptoms should get a test and stay at home until you have a negative test result.
In addition to the testing advice provided yesterday which remains current, we are now asking that if people were in Auckland CBD at locations of interest, they get a test regardless of symptoms. Currently, these locations include:
- Mezze Bar on 5 November
- Liquor.Com bottle store, Queen Street on 5 November
- Red Pig Restaurant on 7 November
- Smith and Caughey’s Queen Street on 7 November
- Sunny Town China Taste Restaurant on 8 and 9 November
- Starbucks Queen Street on 8 and 9 November
- The Gateau House on 8 November
- A-Z Collection on 8, 9, 11 November
- The Vincent, 7–12 November
- Auckland City Doctors on 10 November
- AUT Student Hub on 10 November
This is an enhanced surveillance tactic to ensure we are not missing any cases who maybe asymptomatic.
Auckland DHB is also continuing to closely monitor demand and capacity for testing outside the CBD. For example, there are a number of urgent care and after-hours clinics in Botany available for testing and a CTC will open in Botany tomorrow.
There will also be a CTC open in West Auckland through the weekend, in addition to the two CTCs open regularly in West Auckland on weekdays.
Push notifications
Yesterday, the Ministry sent out 11 push notifications relating to seven locations visited by the latest confirmed case.
As of 10 am this morning, 51 NZ COVID Tracer app users have received contact alerts from these notifications.
The contact alerts for A-Z Collection, the Vincent Residences and Red Pig Restaurant advised app users to isolate and call Healthline to arrange a test.
The alerts for the other four locations advised app users to contact Healthline if they develop any COVID-19 symptoms.
Numbers
In our regular details, there are four cases to announce today, one recent arrival and 3 historical cases.
The recent arrival arrived from the Philippines via Hong Kong on 31 October. They tested positive at around day 12 routine testing and are now in the Auckland quarantine facility.
Of the three historical cases: 1 returned from Mexico in October. Their day 12 test was positive, but they remained asymptomatic and had a high Ct value. We now believe this case to be consistent with an earlier overseas infection. They are now classified as recovered. 1 arrived from Los Angeles in October. Their day 12 test was positive, but they remained asymptomatic and had a high Ct value. We now believe this case to be consistent with an earlier overseas infection. They are now classified as recovered. 1 additional case returned a high Ct value and is classified as recovered
Four previously reported cases have now recovered, meaning our total number of active cases remains at 53.
Our total number of confirmed cases is now 1,639.
Yesterday our laboratories completed 7,226 tests for COVID-19, bringing our total number of tests completed to date to 1,162,740.
NZ COVID Tracer
There are now 2,353,100 registered users of the NZ COVID Tracer app.
Poster scans have reached 113,412,688 and there have been 4,719,293 manual diary entries.
From our stats, we can see that fewer than one in six of the 2.3 million users registered with the app are using it daily.
It remains incredibly important we all scan the QR codes wherever we see them, as the more we all scan, the safer we’ll all be.
We can’t afford to get complacent – we’ve seen that despite our robust border controls the virus can emerge anywhere in the community at any time.
Taking a few seconds to scan in with the app means we can quickly inform you when you may have been exposed to the virus, so you can take steps to protect yourself and your whānau.
It also means if you test positive for the virus, you can instantly provide your digital diary to contact tracers to give them a massive head-start.
The faster we can contact trace, the quicker we can get ahead of the virus and prevent spread in the community.
