Ministry of Health Covid-19 update
April 18, 2020
Today New Zealand’s total number of Covid-19 cases has increased by 13, made up of eight new confirmed cases and five new probable cases.
The new combined total of confirmed and probable cases in New Zealand is 1422.
There are no further deaths to report today.
There are now 867 reported cases of Covid-19 who have recovered – an increase of 51 on yesterday.
Today there are 20 people in hospital with Covid-19. The total includes three people in ICU – one each in Middlemore, Dunedin and North Shore hospitals.
Two of these ICU patients – in Dunedin and North Shore – are in a critical condition.
There are still 16 significant clusters – no change from yesterday. Seven more cases have been connected to clusters.
Yesterday a record number of Covid-19 tests were processed, with the new high being 4677 tests. The rolling seven-day average is 2905, and 79,078 total tests have been processed to date.
Targeted testing
Targeted testing to help determine whether there is any undetected community transmission has taken place in Queenstown, Waikato, Canterbury and is today taking place in Auckland.
All tests processed from the Queenstown supermarket site returned a negative result.
In Waikato, 308 people were tested across Otorohanga, Hamilton, Matamata, Cambridge, and Te Awamutu. Those tests have all also returned negative results.
All tests processed to date from the community testing in Canterbury are also negative for Covid-19.
Today in Auckland testing began at 8am at two supermarkets with the aim to collect 150 swabs at each site.
NOTE: Case details cannot be provided at this time as the EpiSurv database was briefly down this morning. A further update will be provided this afternoon.
