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Today there was no press conference. The government is due to announce on Monday whether alert levels will change in New Zealand this week.
Auckland is at level 2.5, while the rest of the country is at level 2.
In a statement released today at 2 pm, an hour later than usual, the ministry said the two community cases are domestic contacts of a case reported on Saturday, which is not connected to the larger Auckland group.
The case reported on Saturday is a recent returnee who arrived in New Zealand from India on August 27 and completed administered isolation, returning two negative tests at the Christchurch facility before returning home to Auckland on September 11.
The case reported yesterday was tested after developing symptoms on September 16 and tested positive. He and his family contacted themselves when he developed symptoms. They were all transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility on September 18, when the first case tested positive.
All identified close contacts have been isolated and tested.
The source of the case’s infection is still under investigation, but genome sequencing is consistent with two confirmed cases from the same flight from India to New Zealand that landed on August 27.
The ministry said that it is possible that this case became infected during that flight and had an extremely long incubation period; there is evidence that on rare occasions the incubation period can be up to 24 days. This person developed symptoms 21 days after arrival in New Zealand. If this is the case, it is well outside the standard incubation period of the virus.
The ministry said that another possible scenario is that the case could have been infected during the flight from Christchurch to Auckland; other passengers on that flight are currently being contacted and evaluated as a precautionary measure to exclude them as a source of infection.
IMPORTED CASES
The first imported case reported today is a man in his 30s who arrived from London via Dubai on September 16. He tested positive for routine tests around day 3 of his stay in administered isolation at the Novotel Ellerslie, and is being transferred to Auckland quarantine. installation today.
The second imported case reported today is a man in his 20s who arrived from India via Singapore on September 12. He returned a negative test for Covid-19 around day 3 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.
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 with Covid, one in Auckland City, Middlemore and North Shore hospitals. They are all isolated in a general room.
Since August 12, the ministry’s contact tracing team has identified 3,916 close case contacts, of which 3,912 have been contacted and are self-isolating, and we are in the process of contacting the rest.
The total number of active cases is 71; of these, 36 are imported cases in managed isolation / quarantine facilities and 35 are community cases.
The total number of confirmed Covid cases in New Zealand is now 1,464.
