The Ministry of Health (MoH) has announced there are five new cases of COVID-19 in managed isolation to report today, and one border-related case reported last night will be officially added to today’s tally.

There are no new cases in the community.

March air crew case

As reported by the Ministry last night, a border-related case of COVID-19 has been identified as part of routine surveillance testing.

The person has been transferred to Auckland’s quarantine facility. Their household contacts have tested negative but remain in isolation at home as a precaution.

Genome sequencing is due late tomorrow afternoon.

“As the case has remained symptom free, public health staff are conservatively considering that they may have been infectious since their last negative test on 28 February,” the MoH statement says. 

“The case has a limited number of contacts and therefore the wider public health risk is considered low.  Specific advice is being provided to individuals identified as contacts by public health staff about the steps they need to take.

“The most likely scenario being investigated by health staff is that the air crew member was exposed overseas and therefore, most likely was either incubating, or infectious with, COVID-19 before being vaccinated later in the week.

“The vaccine requires two doses and takes around two weeks until it begins to provide protection. 

“The air crew member has had the first dose. The second dose is given at least 21 days after the first.

“”It is not possible the crew member caught COVID-19 from this vaccine as it does not contain any live, dead or deactivated virus.

“The vaccine doesn’t cause people who have had it to test positive for COVID-19.”

Locations of interest – self-isolation requirements

“The Public Health initial assessment is there is low risk to the public due to Auckland being at Alert Level 3 for the period in which this case was back in New Zealand and they were at home for most of that time,” the MoH statement says. 

“Further interviews are being held with the case. Current locations of interest information is available here.

“Anyone who has visited a location of interest at the times specified is advised to contact Healthline if they develop symptoms.

“A golf course that a member of the case’s household went to on Sunday morning is not considered a location of interest. The household member returned a negative COVID-19 test yesterday afternoon and was therefore not infectious while playing golf.

“We would like to thank all contacts and their households for isolating and being tested as required to keep their community safe.”

Up-to-date information on testing locations in metro Auckland

There are 7 community testing available in Auckland today. These are in Wiri, Otara, Pakuranga Heights, Balmoral, New Lynn, Henderson and Northcote.  

For up-to-date information on testing locations in Auckland, visit https://www.arphs.health.nz/ and all testing locations nationwide, visit the Healthpoint website.

Auckland February cases contact tracing update

“Nearly 6,000 contacts were required to be tested and isolate during the February outbreak,” the MoH statement says. 

“We do wish to thank all members of the community who did the right thing in order to keep the community safe.

“One person from the gym remains outstanding and Health staff are working with other agencies including Police to try and contact this person.”

Cases update 

The total number of active cases in New Zealand is 78. The total number of confirmed cases is 2,049.

The total number of tests processed by laboratories to date is 1,783,178.

On Sunday, 3,962 tests were processed. The seven-day rolling average up to yesterday is 10,164 tests processed.

Historical cases  

Since January 1, there have now been 37 historical cases, out of a total of 239 cases.

NZ COVID Tracer

NZ COVID Tracer now has 2,739,743 registered users.

Poster scans have reached 211,453,530 and users have created 8,281,167 manual diary entries. There have been 1,433,852 scans in the last 24 hours.

It’s critical to keep track of where you’ve been and the COVID Tracer app is an easy way to do this. Please continue to scan QR codes wherever you go and turn on Bluetooth tracing in the app dashboard if you haven’t already done so.