Covid 19 coronavirus: latest update on Christmas and San Esteban cases

There have been 16 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand in the last four days.

Fifteen of the cases are on the border.

The other was a landmark case in the community seven months ago that has now been confirmed.

The total number of active cases in New Zealand is 50 after 15 cases were recovered.

Our total number of confirmed cases is 1788.

The 16 new cases

• One case arrived on December 17 from the United States. The person tested positive on the seventh day as he was a close contact of another case on the same flight. This person is now in quarantine at a facility in Christchurch.

• One case arrived on December 19 from India via the United Arab Emirates. This person tested positive for routine tests around the third day and was transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

• Two cases traveling together arrived on December 20 from India via the United Arab Emirates. They tested positive on routine tests around the third day. Both were transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

• Two cases, traveling separately, arrived on December 20 from India via the United Arab Emirates and tested positive in routine tests around the third day. Both people have now been transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

• One case, a member of the air flight support crew, arrived on December 22 from France. This person tested positive for routine tests on the second day and was transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility. A close contact has been identified and that person has returned a negative result and is in self-isolation.

• Two cases arrived on December 21 from the United States. They tested positive on routine tests around the third day. Both have been quarantined at a facility in Christchurch.

• One case arrived on December 22 from Pakistan via Qatar and Australia. This person had symptoms and tested positive on the first day. The person has been transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

• One case arrived on December 22 from Malaysia via the United Arab Emirates. The person tested positive for routine tests around day three and was transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

• One case arrived on December 22 from India via Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. The person tested positive for routine tests around day three and was transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

• One case arrived on December 22 from India via the United Arab Emirates. The person tested positive on routine tests around the third day. The person has been transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

• One case arrived on December 22. The last leg of his trip was from Singapore, but his home country has yet to be confirmed. The person tested positive for routine tests around the third day and has now been transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

• One case arrived on December 24 from India via the United Arab Emirates. The person was examined the first day because he had symptoms. The person has been transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

The historical case is that of a person who showed a weak positive in May.

The Christchurch-based person obtained additional test results that were inconclusive and the case was determined to be likely historic at the time of diagnosis, the Health Ministry says.

At the time, the person was in close contact with a family member who had recently returned from abroad and was isolating himself at home because MIQ facilities had not yet been established.

The person made a full recovery in May and is now registered as a community case. The investigation has been formally closed.

During the summer holidays, the ministry is asking Kiwis to keep scanning their NZ Covid Tracer apps.

There are now 2,420,400 users in the app, scans have reached 144,622,903, and app users have created 5,829,315 manual journal entries.

Meanwhile, the total number of tests processed by the ministry’s laboratories to date is 1,394,812.

The next scheduled Covid-19 update will be provided on Tuesday, December 29.

Seven new cases related to the Sydney outbreak

Across Tasman there are seven new Covid-19 cases related to the Northern Beaches outbreak in Sydney.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian says the news came after nearly 24,000 people underwent tests overnight.

Six were part of the Avalon group, and of those six, five were already isolated. The seventh case is still under investigation.

Officials monitor a new strain in the UK

Back in New Zealand, the ministry also took note of the emergence of a new strain of Covid-19, known as B.1.1.7, in the UK and officials were monitoring the situation.

They had also been told that a Taiwan-based kiwi had tested positive for the virus. The person had not been to New Zealand while he was contagious.

Kiwis in the UK beg to return as new varieties spread

The rapid spread of new strains of Covid-19 in the UK has prompted some New Zealanders to ask the government for help getting back home.

Meanwhile, the people here, including health experts, want the government to tighten the screws on its border controls.

A new highly infectious variant of Covid-19 is spreading across Britain, while another, imported from South Africa, is being investigated by experts.

A New Zealander in the UK, Ranko Berich, described the plight of his fellow Kiwis as “hundreds of people in dire straits”.

He has been trying to get home to his wife and two young children, after quitting his job and calling at his apartment, but they have found themselves in the middle of the trip interruption.

Hundreds of flights were canceled after Singapore and Hong Kong stopped allowing transits.

“We are effectively jobless and homeless and we have to fight to make alternative arrangements,” he said.

“There are a lot of people in a worse situation where they struggle to find accommodation, they are worried about money and they really have no options.”

The situation is compounded by New Zealand’s managed isolation reserve system, which is full for about 10 weeks.

The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment said that people could keep their isolation reservations managed if they rebooked new flights on the same day as the canceled ones.

He expected eight to 20 arrivals a day to be affected by the outage in the coming weeks, and said canceled bookings would be republished on days with flights from the UK.

Additional reports from RNZ