Ministry of Health Covid-19 update
June 27, 2020
Today there are two cases of Covid-19 to report and once again both cases are people who have recently returned from overseas and are in managed isolation facilities.
These cases bring the number of active cases in New Zealand to 16, all in managed isolation or quarantine facilities. There are no cases in the community.
The first case is a man in his 20s who arrived in New Zealand from India on June 22. He has been staying at the Grand Millennium Hotel and tested positive for Covid-19 as part of routine testing around day three of his stay in the facility.
The second case is a woman in her 20s who arrived in New Zealand from India on 18 June. She has also been staying at the Grand Millennium. The woman tested negative for Covid-19 on June 23 as part of routine testing. On June 26 she was taken by ambulance to Auckland Hospital emergency department for a different medical issue for a short period before returning to managed isolation.
She was tested for Covid-19 as part of her assessment while at the hospital and that test has today returned as positive.
Members of staff were aware that she had returned from overseas to a managed quarantine facility and appropriate protocols were followed, including the use of PPE.
No members of staff are considered to be close contacts. The patient was cared for in a separate room while in the emergency department. She wore a surgical mask for the duration of her time at Auckland City Hospital. She did not require hospitalisation and the emergency department is the only part of the hospital she visited.
Members of the public can be assured that Auckland City Hospital is safe for patients, visitors and staff.
Both new cases are being managed and followed up as per usual protocols.
As noted at briefings over the last two weeks, the Covid-19 pandemic is still accelerating overseas and new cases are to be expected at our border, which is why we have strict border controls in place.
The 14-day stay in managed isolation or quarantine ensures that returnees are managed with appropriate public health protocols and isolated from other New Zealanders while they may be incubating the virus.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said this person’s initial negative test result was not unexpected as it is possible that the woman was in the early stages of incubating the disease at her initial test.
“What this case highlights is the importance of 14 days spent in managed isolation or quarantine together with daily symptom checks.
“Even with all returnees being tested twice during their stay in managed isolation, we continue to do a daily check for symptoms consistent with Covid-19 as part of our broader programme, which includes strict protocols in our managed isolation and quarantine facilities.”
“The addition of testing is providing us with an extra level of assurance that we can identify people in managed isolation who have Covid-19 and, if they do, they can then be managed appropriately. So saying, the protocols in place at managed isolation facilities are based on the assumption that people may have Covid-19 until they complete their isolation period.”
Our total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 is now 1172, which is the number we report to the World Health Organization.
Yesterday our laboratories completed 9178 tests, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 387,435. This includes testing at managed isolation facilities and community-based testing across the country.
2159
Of the 2159 people who left managed isolation facilities between June 9 and June 16, 1228 people have been contacted and have tested negative for Covid-19; 800 of those were tested before leaving managed isolation and the remaining 428 were tested after departure from the facility.
A total of 367 people have been referred for a test which we do not yet have a result for.
There are 427 people who we have repeatedly tried to make contact with, including via text and via phone calls. Again, a reminder to anyone who was in a managed isolation facility between June 9 and 16 who has not yet spoken with Healthline to call the dedicated team on 09 302 0408.
As needed we will refer people we do not make contact with to finding services. A total of 92 of these had invalid phone numbers, so have been referred to finding services.
We have had 137 people who will not be tested because of reasons such as being a child, being part of repositioning crew, currently being overseas or they are refusing a test. A total of 79 people have refused testing.
NZ Covid Tracer App
NZ Covid Tracer has now recorded 582,000 registrations.
We continue to encourage as many people as possible to download and use the app ‐ this will support our contact tracing efforts in Level 1.
It’s great news that more and more businesses and organisations are displaying their official QR codes. The number of posters created by businesses is now 75,285.
There have been 1,250,339 poster scans to date.
