Ministry of Health Covid-19 update
July 8, 2020
Today there is one new case of Covid-19 to report in managed isolation in New Zealand.
The person who has tested positive for Covid-19 is a man in his 30s. He arrived in New Zealand on July 3 from New Delhi, India.
There was an incident last night where the man left his managed isolation facility, the Stamford Plaza, and went to the Countdown supermarket on Auckland’s Victoria St West.
The Auckland Public Health Service has conducted a thorough interview with the person as well as viewed CCTV footage from the facility, the CBD and Countdown to understand the risk to the public posed by this incident.
While investigations are ongoing, the current assessment of risk is low.
The person did not come into close contact (that is, two metres or more) with anyone else during the time they were away from the facility, which was between 7pm-8pm last night.
During the time they were away from the facility the person wore a mask, although has indicated that this was removed for short periods.
A reminder that our first line of defence against Covid-19 is basic hygiene measures.
A reminder of our key public health measures which remain important in protecting yourselves and each other from the spread of disease:
• wash your hands thoroughly
• cough or sneeze into your elbow
• don’t touch your face
• don’t go to work, socialise or be out in public if you are sick.
If anyone is concerned about their health they should contact Healthline on 0800 358 5453 for advice in the first instance.
All Covid-19 testing facilities are on standby to test people as required, and there will be no barrier to testing for people that need one.
That incident is being followed up by the All of Government team managing the isolation and quarantine facilities, led by Air Commodore Darryn Webb.
The man has now been transferred to the quarantine facility in Auckland.
This case brings our total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 to 1187, which is the number we report to the World Health Organization.
That brings our number of confirmed active cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand to 23, all in managed isolation or quarantine.
Yesterday our laboratories completed 2131 Covid-19 tests. That brings the total number of tests completed to date to 419,055.
NZ Covid Tracer
We continue to encourage as many New Zealanders as possible to download and regularly use the NZ Covid Tracer app.
Scanning QR posters at places you visit is quick and easy, and provides a useful digital diary of where you have been should you need to recall your movements for contact tracing purposes.
The app has now recorded 591,000 registered users.
Creating QR posters is quick and easy for businesses – there have been 77,224 posters created so far, and we continue to encourage businesses to get a poster to support contact tracing in New Zealand.
There have been 1,367,121 poster scans to date.
