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Epidemiologist Michael Baker is calling for stricter rules for returnees after a man tested positive more than a week after emerging from controlled isolation.
The University of Otago public health professor said the government should learn a lesson from the group of three this weekend.
He suggested that people leaving controlled isolation should be required to isolate themselves for another week at home, or at least stay away from work or school and wear a mask in public.
Two of Sunday’s new cases were family contacts of the case confirmed Saturday, a man who returned to New Zealand from India on Aug. 27.
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He had completed the managed isolation in Christchurch, obtaining two negative tests. He returned home to Auckland on September 11, but began to feel ill on September 16.
RYAN ANDERSON / Stuff
Nurse Cayla Jensen tests a woman in Auckland driving tests.
He and his family isolated themselves as soon as he developed symptoms, and two days later they were transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.
Health Ministry officials said this man had a rare and extremely long incubation period after catching Covid on the flight from India, or caught on his flight from Christchurch to Auckland.
Baker said a third option seemed more likely: that the man was infected in the managed isolation facility.
“If he got infected on day 10, he could have tested negative on day 12 and developed symptoms in Auckland,” Baker said.
The genome sequencing for his case is consistent with two confirmed cases from the same flight from India to New Zealand that landed on August 27.
The Health Ministry did not confirm whether they were staying at the same facility. However, at least seven positive cases from the flight were in controlled isolation in Christchurch, which has six MIQ facilities.
A spokesman for the Health Ministry said the ministry is “keeping an open mind” on how the man became infected, “whether that happened in India, on the international flight to New Zealand, in controlled isolation or after they left facilities”.
The flight the man was traveling on from Christchurch to Auckland was a government-chartered flight and other passengers came from other managed isolation facilities in Christchurch.
Other passengers on that flight are being contacted and evaluated as a precautionary measure to exclude them as a source of infection.
“We are investigating all avenues and the important thing is that the cases are contained, the close contacts identified, isolated and proven.”
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Professor Michael Baker says there should be stricter rules for the week after controlled isolation.
Baker said it was “quite difficult to imagine” that the person would not develop symptoms in controlled isolation if they contract the virus on the way to New Zealand.
The Health Ministry said that while the time period is “well outside the standard incubation period for the virus,” there is evidence that the incubation period lasts up to 24 days. The man developed symptoms 21 days after arriving in New Zealand.
The vast majority of people infected with Covid-19 will become ill within 14 days.
The Health Ministry said that keeping returnees in controlled isolation for 14 days remains the gold standard.
“Our own model confirms that 14 days spent in isolation administered with two tests leaves a very low risk of someone leaving isolation administered with COVID-19.”
The government has not announced stricter rules for people leaving managed isolation, but said this case was a “reminder of the sensitive nature of the virus and a reminder that anyone who has been through a managed isolation facility should be very conscious of his health. ” .
“Anyone who develops symptoms of COVID-19 should be tested and isolated while waiting for the results like these people did.”
Imported cases
There were also two confirmed cases of coronavirus in controlled isolation on Sunday.
The first imported case is a man in his 30s who arrived from London via Dubai on September 16.
He tested positive for routine tests around the third day of his stay in controlled isolation at the Novotel Ellerslie, and is being transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.
The second imported case is a man in his 20s, who arrived from India via Singapore on September 12.
He returned a negative test around the third day of his stay in administered isolation at the Grand Millennium. The man was transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility as a close contact for a confirmed case, retested and tested positive.
As of September 20, there are 47 people in isolation at the community’s Auckland quarantine facility, which includes 20 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their household contacts.
Three people are hospitalized, one in Auckland City, Middlemore and North Shore hospitals. The three patients are isolated in a general ward.
Since August 12, contact tracing teams have identified 3,916 close case contacts, of which 3,912 have been contacted and are self-isolating.
The total number of active cases is 71; of these, 36 are imported cases at MIQ facilities and 35 are community cases.
This brings the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases to 1,464.
Labs have processed 5,417 tests, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 910,853
