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Four new cases of coronavirus have been reported in New Zealand, with two in the community.
The other two are imported cases, which are in managed isolation.
All new community cases are linked to the Auckland August cluster, bringing the total number of cases linked to it to 173.
Ryan Anderson / Stuff
A coronavirus testing station in Māngere, Auckland.
The two imported cases arrived in the country on a flight from India on August 27. One is a man in his 30s and the other is a woman in his 50s.
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They are both in administered isolation in Christchurch and tested positive on the 12th. They are now both in a quarantine facility.
Both new community cases have been epidemiologically linked to existing cases of people in the bereavement subgroup, which in turn is linked to the Mount Roskill Evangelical Fellowship subgroup.
“A factor that is important to underline here is that this subgroup has emerged as a result of a contact of a case that had close contact with other people,” said the Ministry of Health.
“From what we know, they didn’t know they had been infected and they were incubating and spreading the virus at the time.”
After the call for church members to retest, 213 of 332 had done so by 8 a.m. Thursday.
An additional testing site has been established in the Mt Roskill War Memorial room.
A deep cleaning was completed at St Dominic’s Catholic College in West Auckland after a student tested positive.
“Many members of the school community have been examined since they were informed of the case Tuesday afternoon.
“The testers have been given a surveillance code to test asymptomatic members of the school community so they can keep track of the numbers.”
The ministry said that most of the school’s students who were considered casual contacts were being screened as a precaution.
A total of 72 people connected to the cluster remain in the quarantine facility, including 56 people who have tested positive for the virus.
Three people are in the hospital with the virus, and two are in the ICU at North Shore Hospital and Waikato Hospital.
There are currently 120 active cases of the virus, with 1,441 in total.
