Ministry of Health Covid-19 update
August 24, 2020
There are nine new cases of Covid-19 to report in New Zealand today – eight confirmed cases and one probable case.
One confirmed case is an imported case picked up in MIQ at the Four Points by Sheraton in Auckland at routine testing around day 12. The person who has tested positive is a woman in her 30s and we will provide an update on where she travelled from when the information is available.
The other eight cases – seven confirmed and one probable – are in the community and are all linked to the Auckland cluster.
One of these had contact with another confirmed case on bus transport. Four are household contacts of confirmed cases. One has had contact with a confirmed case at a church. Two are workplace contacts – one of these is the probable case.
These cases bring our total number of confirmed cases to 1332, which is the number we report to the World Health Organization.
Our total number of probable cases is now 351, and our combined total of confirmed and probable cases is now 1683.
The total number of active cases in New Zealand is 123, of which 19 are imported cases from managed isolation facilities.
By this morning, our contact tracing team had identified 2300 close contacts of cases, of which 2249 have been contacted and are self-isolating, and we are in the process of contacting the rest.
There are 151 people linked to the cluster who have been moved into the Auckland quarantine facility. This includes 82 people who have tested positive for Covid-19 and their household contacts.
Today there are 10 people in hospital who have Covid-19. Three people are in Auckland City Hospital, four people in Middlemore, two people in North Shore Hospital and one person in Waikato Hospital.
The new person in Auckland City Hospital is linked to the community cluster and was transferred from the quarantine facility late on Sunday.
Eight people are on a ward, and two people in Middlemore are in ICU.
Hospitals in Auckland continue to manage Covid-19 patients using appropriate infection prevention and control protocols ensuring hospitals remain safe for patients, visitors and staff.
Laboratories completed 4589 tests yesterday, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 697,070.
In the last seven days, labs have processed nearly 100,000 tests for Covid-19.
People who have symptoms of Covid-19, or who are concerned about potential exposure, should continue to seek advice from their GP or Healthline on getting a test.
NZ Covid Tracer
There are now more than 1,770,000 people registered to use the NZ Covid Tracer app – this is more than 43 per cent of the population aged 15 and over.
We have been really encouraged to see the uptake of the app – it is great that New Zealanders are clearly aware of the importance of keeping a record of their movements. These recent cases have shown us that the ability to be able to quickly trace and isolate contacts of cases is key to stamping out this virus.
There have been well over a million scans every day for the past 7 days.
There are now 313,119 QR codes that have been created.
The number of QR codes being created has reduced significantly over the last three days, indicating that almost all New Zealand businesses now have their QR codes in place.
