Four new cases of Covid-19 confirmed – Delta confirmed

COVID-19 UPDATE FROM THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH

August 18, 2021 – Day one of Level 4 lockdown

There are four new cases of Covid-19 to confirm this morning.  Additional details and any further cases will be announced at 1pm.

One of the four new cases is a workmate of case A, the case announced yesterday.  The other three are contacts of this workmate.  One of the three contacts is a fully vaccinated health professional who works at Auckland City Hospital and had been working in recent days.

Auckland City Hospital has taken some immediate actions to shut down any potential spread.  Those actions include stopping unnecessary movements between wards, testing all staff and patients on the ward the health professional worked on and standing down, testing and isolating staff on the same ward.

The Ministry received the results last night of the genome sequencing for case A.  It is the Delta variant. We are undertaking further analysis to see how it could be connected to cases we know about.

These developments strongly reinforce the importance of the actions taken last night in the move to level 4 and underpin the importance of everyone keeping to the lockdown conditions.

The key message from the last lockdown remains relevant: ‘stay at home, save lives, be tested.  This will stop any undetected spread in the community.

The Ministry will be providing its assessment later today about the extent of likely spread in the community and the length of time the virus may have been circulating in the community.

Only leave your home if you need to, and please wear a mask when you do.  We know of instances where people have picked up Delta simply by walking past someone with it.

Please get tested if you visited a location of interest or have cold and flu symptoms. Eight testing sites are being stood up in Auckland (details below) and we will be able to share details of testing sites in the Coromandel later this morning and elsewhere in the country.

Please call Healthline on 0800 358 5453. And go to healthpoint.co.nz to find your local testing station, they will be updated during the day

We know that on the first day of testing it can take time for systems to be stood up and queues can be long. Please prepare to be in a queue for some time –wear a mask, take food and water with you, take a book to read or something to watch and please be patient and kind. Everyone is doing their best at testing stations, but the first day always tends to be busy.

Further updates will be provided at 1pm but our messages remain the ones we are familiar with:

–        Stay home
–        If you have to go out make sure you wear a mask
–        Stay in your bubble and reduce contact with others
–        Act as if you have Covid and as if others around you do to
–        We only have to look to Australia and see how hard it is to control spread once it takes hold and what not getting on top of the virus early looks like
–       Our approach has worked to date – hard and fast has meant fewer lock downs, fewer deaths and hospitalisations, and a more open economy, so we know what to do, we just need to do it again but even stronger than before – we are up against a more dangerous adversary in Delta.

Metro Auckland Community Testing Centres
Effective August 18 9AM

Pop-Up Community Testing Centres