Dr Caroline McElnay, Director of Public Health presented the daily government update today and announced the Ministry of Health was sad to confirm the death, yesterday, of a woman in her 90’s at Burwood Hospital, Christchurch.

“As we have seen around the world”, Caroline said” COVID-29 is a deadly disease, particularly for elderly people and also those with underlying health issues”.

The woman was one of a group of 20 residents of the Rosewood Rest Home who had been transferred to Burwood Hospital as part of the CDHB cluster management process, to allow them to isolate together in a group bubble.

Caroline said the country’s thoughts with be with the Christchurch woman’s family and loved ones at this time.

The woman had age related health conditions prior to testing positive to COVID-19 this week.

‘Because of the current Alert Level 4 no family members were able to visit the woman in hospital in recent days and were not able to be present when she passed away” Caroline said.

‘This latest sad news reinforces the importance of our move to Alert Level 4 and the measures we are all taking to limit spread, break the chain of transmission and prevent deaths”.

There are 44 new cases of COVID-19 – 23 confirmed and 21 probable.

“At this stage, 14 of the new 44 cases are linked to existing clusters with investigations on-going”, said Caroline.

373 people are now classed as recovered.

The combined number of COVID-19 cases in New Zealand is now 1,283.

There are currently 16 COVID-19 patients in hospital. Of these, four are in Intensive Care units, including one in the SDHB region who is in a critical condition.

For those cases the Ministry has information on 40% are linked to international travel, 44% contact with known cases (including those in clusters), 2% community transmission and 14% are still under investigation.

There are still 12 clusters.