Ministry of Health Covid-19 update
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
From Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield
Today there are 50 new cases of Covid-19 to report – made up of 26 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 24 new probable cases. There are no additional deaths to report.
There are now 282 reported cases which we can confirm have recovered – an increase of 41 on yesterday.
The combined total of confirmed and probable cases in New Zealand is 1210.
Today there are 12 people in hospital, including four in ICU – one each in Wellington, Waitemata, Counties Manukau and Southern DHBs. Two of these ICU patients are in a critical condition.
For those cases we have information on, we are still seeing a strong link to overseas travel though this is declining (41 per cent), as well as links to confirmed cases within New Zealand (43 per cent) including those in clusters we already know about and community transmission (2 per cent). We are still investigating 14 per cent of cases.
There are still 12 significant clusters. Our three largest clusters remain the same: Matamata (62); Bluff (81); and Marist College (84).
Testing
There were 4098 tests processed yesterday bringing the total number of cases carried out to date to 46,875.
Our seven-day rolling average of tests is at 3343 per day.
Our test capacity continues to increase and we have supplies in stock for nearly 49,000 tests. We expect to have between 50,000 to 60,000 complete tests in stock by the end of the week.
Health care workers affected
We have 64 health care workers who are confirmed or probable for Covid-19.
The largest categories are 20 support or care workers; 17 nurses; 7 administrative-related roles; seven doctors and three medical students.
We know six of these 64 healthcare workers with Covid-19 have recovered.
We also know that more than a quarter of those have travelled overseas recently. We are working on a breakdown to determine how many of our healthcare workers infected in New Zealand were infected inside or outside the workplace.
Data on testing
We have analysed the data available for 35,000 people tested, which is for 39,000 tests as some people are tested more than once.
From that we can see that generally the DHBs doing the most testing are also the DHBs with the most confirmed and probable cases.
The ethnicity of the 35,000 people tested is:
Maori: 13.6 per cent
Pasifika: 7.8 per cent
Asian: 12 per cent
Middle Eastern and Latin American: 2 per cent
European and other: 64.2 per cent
The data, which currently excludes Waikato, will be regularly updated.
Flu vaccination
We do have sufficient vaccine for our priority groups; those over 70, pregnant women and those with specific underlying health conditions. For those over 70s needing vaccinations, they are able to travel to get a flu vaccination – if they can’t get one from their local practice. This is regarded as essential travel.
Travel for care for acute or usual care for chronic conditions are also both regarded as essential travel.
