Covid 19 coronavirus: Five days in a row with no community cases, but border questions remain

All the contacts of the Auckland marine engineer infected with Covid-19 came back negative, but experts say questions remain as to how the virus made it back across the border.

As of Tuesday, New Zealand had gone five days with no new community cases, the longest period since the marine engineer tested positive for the virus on October 16.

A new case of managed isolation was announced on Tuesday: a boy aged between 1 and 4 who arrived in New Zealand with his family from the UK.

Chief Health Officer Dr. Ashley Bloomfield also announced that health officials had contacted all of the marine engineer’s close and casual contacts and that they had all tested negative.

Overall, nearly 40,000 tests have been conducted since the case was announced.

This was despite the fact that two of the man’s colleagues, who also boarded the foreign ship Sofrana Surville, tested positive and visited a variety of Auckland venues, including Malt Bar in Greenhithe, on Friday night, along with a gym, a bank and several stores.

While the possibility of an outbreak would hold up to two full incubation cycles after October 16 (28 days), so far it appears that the city may have dodged a bullet that could have plunged it back into the blockade.

Infectious disease expert Professor David Murdoch said the main takeaway from the swift containment of the cluster was that the system is working as intended.

“It has been detected quickly, we have managed to find the source; unlike the previous outbreak, there has been rigorous contact tracing and genome sequencing.”

Use of the Covid tracking app was also significantly higher than before the Auckland Cluster in August that sent the city into lockdown.

In the days before the first person tested positive on August 11, scans averaged around 30,000.

Before these latest cases, it was close to 700,000, although it was down from a peak of 2.5 million in September.

The fact that an infected person had been in a crowded bar on a Friday night, which could have been a “super spreader” event and had had no repercussions so far was not necessarily just luck, Murdoch said.

“The exact details are not known, but it appears that they had only been exposed that morning, so it is quite early and could be the reason why they were not infectious.”

Epidemiologist Dr. Michael Baker said that while this border failure, along with three others recently with an identified source, had been effectively managed and contained, ideally, Covid-19 would not arrive in the first place.

He hoped the Ministry of Health would do thorough investigations of each and make them public so they could be evaluated.

“There will still be a risk with airports and seaports, but with each failure we must clearly identify what went wrong so that it does not happen again.

“In this case, it appears that a maritime worker has been in contact with a foreign crew that has not gone through the normal managed isolation system, so it is something that might need to be addressed.”

Border issues aside, Baker said the public’s best response was to stay home if people were feeling ill and get tested if necessary.

Instead of a bluetooth solution, Baker said people should continue to use the Covid Tracer app if they have it.

Bloomfield also announced on Tuesday that a child had tested positive for Covid-19 upon arrival in Japan, despite testing negative for the virus in New Zealand.

Health authorities were investigating and reaching all the contacts, but Bloomfield said it was likely a “false positive” and “very low risk.”