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It’s New Zealand’s largest Covid-19 outbreak, but the origin of the Auckland cluster remains a mystery. Stuff reporter Virgina Fallon traces the path of the virus’ return.
It’s the 99th and the family is doing what they were told to do: they are taking a vacation.
By August 8, New Zealand’s level 4 lockdown had ended for months and in 24 hours the country would celebrate reaching 100 days without community transmission of Covid-19.
The government is urging Kiwis to support their ailing tourism industry by spending vacations at home and visiting their own country.
And that’s what the family does.
READ MORE:
* Coronavirus: Six new cases of Covid-19, five linked to the Auckland cluster.
* Coronavirus: Auckland has 13 new cases of Covid-19, three in the hospital
* Coronavirus: The above groups show how difficult it can be to find a source of Covid
Abigail Dougherty / Stuff
The Rev. Victor Pouesi outside the EFKS Puaseisei Mangere East Church in Auckland, where at least two people attended Sunday service before testing positive for Covid-19.
The drive from south Auckland to Rotorua takes about three hours, a big factor for a weekend with young children.
We all know how it goes: you stock the car with drinks, snacks and entertainment for the kids and talk about what you’re going to do when you get there. If you are lucky, your child may fall asleep and let you listen to music for a while.
They left on Saturday and arrived in Rotorua in the afternoon.
One of the family members, a woman in her 20s, is feeling bad, but it’s a big call to cancel a vacation just because you’re a little out and besides, it’s winter. And more importantly, New Zealand has beaten Covid-19.
It would be a few more days before she found out that the virus was making her sick, and that is why we know exactly how her family spent the weekend away.
Michael Bradley / Getty Images
Members of the public line up for a Covid-19 test at the Covid Swabbing Center on Aug. 12 in Rotorua.
For three days they explore Rotorua, visit tourist attractions, eat at local restaurants and do a quick shopping trip. They eat at a Rotorua café on Sunday while following social distancing rules and sticking to their bubble, the business owner said later.
Back home in Auckland that morning, other family members are attending a service at Māngere East Pusaseisei Christian Congregational Church of Samoa, where they shake hands with Rev. Victor Pouesi, but also feel ill.
A few days earlier, a woman with a fever and cough visits the Ōtāhuhu Health Center and is told to go to a local community testing center.
That test never happens and on Monday, as her family visits a Rotorua farm park and eats hamburgers and kebabs for dinner, the woman returns to the health center, where a doctor says a test is a priority. Another family member, a man in his 50s, also feels like a criminal, but none have ties to foreign travel or are considered high-risk workers, such as someone who works at the border or in a managed isolation hotel.
On August 11, the Rotorua vacation ended, the family packed up the car and hit the road early. The day before they had taken a cruise on Lake Taupō, leaving at 10:30 am with 13 passengers and a skipper on board. The electric yacht sailed towards the Maori rock carvings; Online reviews describe the experience as quiet and peaceful.
TOM LEE / STUFF / Waikato Times
During a visit to Rotorua in May, Jacinda Ardern announced that the government was considering additional vacations to support the tourism sector.
Perhaps the family will feel relaxed and recharged as they return to normal life, stopping at 9am to refuel in Hamilton on the way home to Auckland.
It’s Tuesday and all hell is about to break loose.
That night, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces that the country’s winning streak is over.
There are four confirmed cases of the virus; Auckland will plunge back into level 3 and the rest of the country into level 2. She urges everyone not to panic, even as social media fills with images of supermarket shoppers cramming carts full of groceries and pushing for cross the gates. .
The Auckland group begins with the names of the two companies where the family members work: Americold and Finance Now.
Ryan Anderson / Stuff
Americold in Mount Wellington, Auckland, was initially suspected to be the location where the virus re-entered the country.
Colleagues and contacts are traced, and as they test positive, the virus turns into a web of locations and cases.
The “index case”, the first person to test positive, works at Finance Now in Mt Eden, but the suspicion of where the virus entered New Zealand resides with Americold, a coolstore company in Mt Wellington.
Health officials cannot rule out the possibility that the virus, which survives in a refrigerated cargo environment transported from abroad, was contracted there. There is a particular focus on a Melbourne refrigerator store where two workers recently tested positive for the disease.
It was later revealed that while he is not the first person to test positive, the first case is found to be a worker who fell ill on approximately July 31.
The day after the family returns to South Auckland, their vacation itinerary is made public. Once the woman learns of the first positive test, both she and her family members are isolated and tested, says Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield.
ROBERT KITCHEN / Things
Dr. Ashley Bloomfield warned in early August that community broadcasting was not a case of if, but when.
The positive tests are coming in: three come from close contacts on the Americold case, while seven members of his family are positive. There are now 12 confirmed cases linked to the Auckland family, with a total of 17 linked cases. It is a cluster.
Environmental testing is underway at Americold, says Bloomfield.
“We know from studies abroad that the virus can actually survive in some refrigerated environments for quite a long time.”
Epidemiologist professor Michael Baker says it is an “intriguing idea” and is not aware of it being documented in any research.
Glamorgan School, on the North Shore, and Southern Cross Campus in South Auckland have a confirmed case. The Taeofou I Puaseisei preschool is also closed, as does the Manukau Institute of Technology in Otara.
On August 14, two days after those first positive tests, another 12 cases are linked to the group and two cases are confirmed in the city of Tokoroa, in southern Waikato. They had been visited by two people, an Americold worker, who later tested positive for the virus. The couple had also visited a nursing home in Morrinsville. In Auckland, 38 people linked to the cluster are now in a managed isolation facility.
DOMINICO ZAPATA / STUFF / Waikato Times
Auckland’s re-entry to Level 3 involved the establishment of barricades to keep people in and out of the region.
Mandatory tests will be announced in all ports of the country.
Ardern says Auckland will stay at level 3 for an additional 12 days and says the genomic sequence of the virus in the current outbreak is not the same as in previous outbreaks; It is a new arrival in New Zealand. “This suggests that it is not a case of the virus being inactive or a burning member in our community.”
Contact tracing and genomic testing have found no link between the virus from the latest outbreak and managed quarantine and isolation facilities. Genomic sequencing identifies where a specific case originated. Bloomfield says that initial results suggest that the strain came from Australia or the United Kingdom.
Back in Auckland, Reverend Pouesi urges 300 of his congregation to get tested.
He says a preschooler and his family attended on Sunday and remembers talking to the mother and shaking her hand.
“We called the family this week to see how they are and if they need access to any kind of counseling and to let them know that they are in our prayers.”
David White / Stuff
Auckland sank to Level 3 following news of the latest outbreak.
The next day, Otahuhu Primary School in South Auckland announces a positive case on social media.
Parents filled out the comment section, trying to figure out which class was involved.
A poster asks for proof: “… what are you calling confirmed? Fever? Rhinorrhea? Cough?”
The case is later confirmed to be an adult.
Auckland physician and former Prime Minister of the Cook Islands 82-year-old Dr. Joe Williams is identified as the Covid-19 patient at the hospital. Your Mt Wellington Medical Center is near Americold.
By August 16, five days after those first positive tests, there are 49 cases linked to the group. The vile rumors spreading like wildfire on social media were causing extreme stress to the family at the center of the group, says Health Minister Chris Hipkins.
One rumor in particular contained various insults.
“There have always been and always will be rumors, but this one smelled of orchestration [and] of being a deliberate act of misinformation. “
It was announced that a maintenance worker at the Hotel Rydges’ managed isolation facility had also tested positive for the virus.
On August 17, a New Zealand Post worker at Auckland’s Highbrook Operations Center and a student at Avondale College test positive for coronavirus.
The next day, Americold is ruled out as a source of transmission and it is revealed that the Rydges worker is not linked to the Auckland cluster. The variation in the virus strain means that the worker contracted it from a traveler who had come to the hotel from the United States.
It could have been contacted through a surface or a third party, Ardern says.
In Rotorua and Taupō, company personnel who visited the Auckland family the previous week tested negative for the virus.
BENN BATHGATE / STUFF / Waikato Times
The family practiced social distancing and stayed in their bubble while visiting Fat Dog Café.
Fat Dog Cafe owner Chris Powell shares the good news on social media and expresses his sympathy for the family found at the center of the storm.
“We understand that the Auckland family of four is going through a difficult time,” he wrote. “… It’s important to note that they were doing what all Kiwis had been encouraged to do: go out and see NZ’s backyard.”
On September 1, almost a month after a family from New Zealand left for a weekend, there is still no answer on the origin of the virus.
There are 146 cases linked to the cluster.
