Covid 19 coronavirus: Church member who caused a ‘subgroup’ broke isolation rules

The Mt Roskill church member who sparked two dozen cases after visiting a grieving family home was destined to be in self-isolation.

The person had been examined prior to his visit on August 27, but the test result was pending.

But as a close contact of another positive case, they should have been in isolation for 14 days even if they tested negative.

The new information, confirmed yesterday by the Health Ministry, contradicts information from the ministry the day before that the person was part of the larger congregation and did not need to isolate himself because he had no symptoms.

The visit may also have violated level 3 rules that require people to stay inside their home bubbles, but the government is not looking to take enforcement action.

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The Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship Church is at the center of the ongoing outbreak in Auckland, with all recent cases attributable to the bereavement subgroup, now with 24 cases and 101 close contacts.

Yesterday there were two new subgroup cases and two imported cases in managed isolation, bringing the total number of active cases to 120.

There are three people in the hospital, including two in the ICU.

The larger church group now has 45 cases, which is part of the entire Auckland group of 173 cases.

The Government has now taken a multi-pronged approach to ensure the continued cooperation of church members and the subgroup.

That involves support from the police, Maori and Pasifika health officials, community leaders and ministers Peeni Henare, Aupito William Sio, and Jenny Salesa, as well as daily home visits and phone calls to ensure people stay home.

Health Minister Chris Hipkins said there now seemed to be good signs of cooperation and that as of yesterday morning, 213 of the 332 people in the church congregation had already been retested.

The power under the Health Act to force people to self-quarantine remained an option, but Hipkins preferred not to use it.

“A punitive approach is likely to have the opposite effect to what we want. We want people’s cooperation. We don’t want them to be scared.”

The earlier breach by the church group was based on a false belief that Covid-19 was not real, which Hipkins said had to be removed as much as the virus itself.

“What remains concerning and threatens to block our path to level 1 is the repeated, deliberate and malicious dissemination of misinformation.

“We continue to see organized campaigns that are designed to confuse and cast doubt on our response.”

He said the global death toll of 900,000 deaths was sufficient evidence of the severity of Covid-19.

“This is very, very real. The virus is very, very deadly. There is no vaccine for it. The best protection we have is through our collective efforts so that the virus has nowhere to go.”

The Health Ministry said the Aug. 27 visit that triggered the subgroup underscored the importance of following the rules.

“From what we can tell, they didn’t know they had been infected and they were incubating and spreading the virus at the time.

“This underscores the importance of maintaining close contacts by following the public health advice given to them, which includes strict self-isolation even if they have no symptoms, and even if they have tested negative.”

Disclosure of close contacts has also been a problem, as the St. Dominic student who tested positive is a contact from a previously undisclosed contact.

Whether that nondisclosure was deliberate is still unknown, Hipkins said.

He added that he had not heard “in any verifiable way” whether church members had participated in a protest against the shutdown.

He said that more cases in the subgroup did not mean there was no chance of moving to level 1 next week, especially if the new cases were already isolated.

The current configuration, level 2.5 in Auckland and level 2 for the rest of the country, will expire at 11:59 pm on September 16.

He didn’t know how many close contacts or positive cases remained to be identified when Auckland exited level 3.

University of Canterbury mathematician and Covid-19 modeler Professor Michael Plank said those people posed a risk, but that it was difficult to quantify.

“If an infected person took a bus, went to class with other students, or just went and did what people do on a day-to-day basis, all of that matters.”

The concern was if a super spreader person was going to a super spreader event, such as a crowded school or indoor workplace.

“What happens next could be due to good or bad luck.”