Covid 19 coronavirus: Auckland’s terrible August: the group that changed everything

A month ago, New Zealand received the news that no one wanted to hear. After 102 days with no new Covid-19 cases in the community, suddenly four members of a South Auckland family tested positive.

Within weeks, the group designated as the Auckland August Cluster had expanded to become the largest connected group of Covid-19 victims in our country with 159 men, women and children testing positive.

Despite drastic measures to stop travel in and out of the Auckland region, and severe restrictions on personal movement and gathering, the tally surpassed previous Bluff and Marist College wedding groups that had stopped at 98 and 96 respectively.

Then last week, the rapidly growing city-wide group that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warned would have a long tail took a deadly turn, claiming the lives of two men in 24 hours.

They were distinguished physician, author, and former Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, Dr. Joe Williams and Americold Cool Store team leader and father of four Alan Te Hiko.

Both men had fought for their lives in the intensive care units at Middlemore and Auckland City hospitals. Both succumbed to the infection on Friday.

They have become the 23rd and 24th victims of the virus since it reached our shores in February, turning upside down this year.

Te Hiko, in her 50s, is the youngest person to die of coronavirus in New Zealand.

When Williams was first admitted to hospital just days after Auckland went to alert level 3, health authorities said the 82-year-old had been treating people at his Mt Wellington practice, located near the Americold cold room, right up when he got sick.

Unlike the previous outbreak in March, this second wave has seen the Pasifika community fall victim to what Ardern has often called a “deceptive virus” in large numbers.

Figures from the Ministry of Health show that 62 percent of those in Auckland’s August group are Pacific people. Another 21% are Maori.

And, for the first time, the number of young people and children suffering from the virus exceeds those of the older age groups, accounting for almost a third of all positive cases.

To date, 17 children under the age of 9 and 33 between the ages of 10 and 19 have Covid-19.

Over the past month, hospitals have treated a handful of patients in need of intensive care and ward. At its peak, 11 people were treated at the hospital on August 28 in Auckland and Waikato.

Compounding the spread of the group is infection through the churches – at least five different congregations affecting hundreds of families in south and central Auckland.

Homes connected to Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship have suffered the highest toll, with 32 people sick to date. Since the outbreak emerged, the Health Ministry has called it a mini-group, with confirmed genomic links and suspected epidemiological links to the Auckland outbreak.

With hundreds of people gathered for a wedding and three services earlier this month, health officials called on Aug. 27 for anyone who had been to any of the gatherings to be on the lookout for symptoms.

New church-related cases were still emerging yesterday. Four other community cases were linked to the Auckland Central Congregation.

All were women, including a primary school boy, two women in their 20s and one in their 60s to 69s.

The sprawling city cluster has also hit Auckland schools, with two positive cases at Mt Albert Grammar.

Just days before the region’s alert level dropped a notch, all the students and teachers at Auckland’s large central secondary school were asked to take an exam before classes began again.

Other schools, such as Glamorgan School in North Shore, Avondale College, Southern Cross Campus, and Taeaofou I Puaseisei Preschool in Mangere East, have had positive results on student tests. The tests have been negative by classmates and teachers.

A class of 30 Otahuhu Elementary students were forced to self-isolate for two weeks after a parent spent time in class the day before Auckland’s mini-closure on August 12.

A month later where the first person got sick remains a mystery.

The first known case of the current wave has been that of an Americold refrigeration store worker in Mt Wellington who became ill on July 31.

The person had not traveled abroad or had knowingly been in contact with a Covid-positive person.

Genomic testing suggested that the strain originated in the UK or Australia.

Despite additional testing from all the border workers and swabs from cold store surfaces, the origin has yet to be found.

Last week, Chief Health Officer Dr Ashley Bloomfield said they had not yet given up on finding the cause of the new strain that was spreading through Auckland and Tokoroa Township at the Waikato paper mill.

Since Aug. 11, when a finance company on Dominion Rd and a fashion store on Mt Wellington were identified as workplaces of interest, 3,191 people have been identified as close case contacts. Of these, 3,136 have been contacted and placed in self-isolation.

At present there have been 1,772 cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand both from importation and from community spread.

Half of the Covid deaths remain related to the Rosewood group of nursing homes in Christchurch, where 12 residents died.

While new cases from returnees are expected to continue to arrive in New Zealand, a combination of controlled isolation and mandatory testing on the 12th is hailed as a success in keeping potential community transmission under control at the border.