Covid 19 coronavirus: a new case in managed isolation

There is a new case of Covid-19 in isolation managed today.

Today’s new case arrived from India via Singapore on October 31. They were transferred from isolation administered at the Grand Mercure to the Auckland quarantine facility on November 5 after a family member tested positive for Covid-19.

There are no new community cases of the virus.

There are currently 52 cases in New Zealand.

It includes two members of the defense force personnel who make up the most recent quarantine group for November.

Health Ministry officials said today that while genome sequencing of the first infected defense force staff member shows a direct link to two returnees at the Auckland quarantine facility, the nature of the contact between the case and the returnees it is still being investigated. In addition, an extensive review of CCTV images is being carried out to determine the person’s infection exposure event.

The staff member’s remaining close contact has returned a negative test result.

Of the 55 close contacts of the second defender identified, 48 have tested negative and the remainder are pending.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Health, said index case in the group, works in the Auckland quarantine facility.

Health officials revealed yesterday that genome sequencing showed a direct link to two returnees who were part of a family group at the facility.

Investigations were underway to determine the source of exposure.

More than 200 members of defense forces personnel sharing accommodation in Auckland with the infected worker had tested negative. Yesterday there were three pending results.

Of the 25 close contacts of the Defense Force worker, 23 had yielded a negative result and one result was pending.

A close contact had yielded a positive result, which was a defense force worker who was the second community case in the group.

Health officials had identified 55 close contacts of the colleague and of those 32 had returned a negative result.

The defense staff member had three domestic contacts and all had negative results.

The household contacts included two students who attended two different schools, Boulcott Primary and Hutt Intermediate, in Lower Hutt. These students were isolated and had not been in school since Friday. As a precautionary measure, they would remain in isolation for 14 days.

The results of casual contacts on a flight that staff took from Auckland to Wellington while infected Thursday night were negative, except for two that were pending.

Another passenger on the flight who became ill this week, causing alarm across Waikato after attending a community meeting in Kawhia on Saturday came back negative yesterday afternoon.

There were four new cases of Covid-19 yesterday, all detected in people who had recently arrived in New Zealand and were in managed isolation facilities.

All travelers are now in Auckland’s Jet Park quarantine facility.

Since the February outbreak there have been 1,630 confirmed cases in New Zealand.