Covid 19 coronavirus: 13 new cases, 11 in the community

There are 13 new cases of Covid-19 today, 11 of which are in the community as Auckland nears breaking out of the lockdown tomorrow night.

Ten are clearly epidemiologically linked to the Auckland group, the Health Ministry said in a statement today.

Six of the cases are associated with the Mt Roskill Evangelical Church subgroup: four are within the same household and two attended religious services.

The other four cases are contacts of previously reported confirmed cases.

The person who has not yet been epidemiologically linked to the group is being interviewed today to determine his possible links to the group, the ministry said.

By this morning, the contact tracing team had identified 2,489 close case contacts, of which 2,425 have been contacted and are self-isolating. Contact trackers are in the process of contacting the rest.

The ministry said that for the period August 20-26, 82 percent of close contacts were contacted and isolated within 48 hours of notification of a case, which met the “gold standard” of 80 percent.

There are now 132 people connected to the cluster who have been transferred to the quarantine facility at the Hotel Jetpark, including 82 people who tested positive.

Eleven people are hospitalized, including three in intensive care, one at Middlemore, North Shore and Waikato hospitals.

Another seven people have recovered from Covid-19, bringing the number of active cases to 137, of which 117 are in the community and 20 are in isolation and managed quarantine (MIQ).

The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases is now 1,376.

Yesterday, the labs processed 9,991 tests while the government works to test 70,000 people for a week at a rate of 10,000 a day.

The complete and up-to-date list of testing sites in Auckland can be found at www.arphs.health.nz/covid19test

Testing sites in other parts of the country can be found on the Ministry of Health website.

Almost two million people have downloaded the Covid Tracer app, which has had 1,919,100 registrations.