Ministry of Health Covid-19 update
June 26, 2020
There is one new case of Covid-19 to report in managed isolation in New Zealand today, and no cases of community transmission.
The case is a man is his 30s who arrived in New Zealand on June 21 from Kenya, via Doha and Brisbane. He has been staying at the Novotel Ellerslie and is moving to the Jet Park Hotel today. The man tested positive for COVID-19 as part of routine testing around day 3 of his stay.
That brings New Zealand’s total number of active cases to 14, all are in managed isolation or quarantine facilities. There are no cases in the community.
New Zealand’s total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 is now 1170, which is the number we report to the World Health Organization.
The number of tests completed by laboratories yesterday was 9825.
That brings the total number of tests completed to date to 378,257.
Testing
There will still be wide testing of people with cold or flu-like symptoms as part of our ongoing community testing and surveillance for the virus.
The main clarification in the case definition that was updated yesterday means that not everyone who is tested will need to self-isolate while they are awaiting the results of their test ‐ only those who have respiratory symptoms and have had one or more of the following in the last 14 days:
– Contact with a confirmed of probable case
– International travel
– Direct contact with someone who has travelled overseas
– History of working on an international aircraft or shipping vessel
– Cleaning at international airport or maritime ports or areas frequently visited by international visitors
Earlier in the month the Director-General of Health signalled a move to more strongly focus testing at our borders. That approach was formally announced by the Health Minister this week, including that there will again be testing of asymptomatic workers involved in managed isolation and quarantine and airport and border staff. This is part of our wider surveillance measures and is expected to be operational in early July.
Our updated approach to testing also includes testing everyone in managed isolation twice during their stay whether symptomatic or not, and surveillance testing of people working in managed isolation facilities and around the border.
Whenever any cases of Covid-19 are found at our managed isolation facilities and it’s assessed that there may have been close contacts at the airport, CCTV footage is reviewed to assist with that assessment. Since 16 June there has been no testing of airport staff as part of our contact tracing process.
Compassionate exemptions
The Ministry has concluded follow-up with the group of 55 people who were granted an exemption from managed isolation on compassionate grounds between June 9 ‐ 16.
– One of these people subsequently had their approval withdrawn and remained in managed isolation for the full 14 days.
– 40 people have returned negative tests for Covid-19.
– 14 people will not be tested either on the basis of health, because they are a child, they have declined, they can no longer be contacted, or they have left the country. These people have been assessed as presenting a very low risk due to the nature of their exemption, adherence to their required protocols and the negative test results of people associated with their bubble.
UK cases
Of returnees at the Novotel from June 6-13, we had referred five people to finding services. Enforcement and other finding services have not been able to find further contact details for these people, who are considered low risk.
2,159
Aside from the people on compassionate exemptions, all of these people had completed a full 14 days in managed isolation.
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.
1,186 people have been contacted and have tested negative for Covid-19; 800 of those were tested before leaving managed isolation and the remaining 386 were tested after departure from the facility.
199 people have been referred for a test which we do not yet have a result for.
We are still in the process of connecting with 632 people. As needed we will refer people we do not make contact with to finding services. 164 of these had invalid phone numbers, so have been referred to finding services.
We have had 142 people who will not be tested because of reasons such as being a child, being part off repositioning crew, currently being overseas or they are refusing a test. 71 people have refused testing.
Cases by DHB
The Ministry has updated how it reports cases of Covid-19 by DHB ‐ previously it was reporting cases by DHB of domicile as that is what is recorded in the EpiSurv database.
Cases that are in managed isolation are now reported as such on the website, to ensure a clear distinction between cases at the border and any cases in the community.
NZ Covid Tracer App
NZ CovidTracer has now recorded 581,000 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 75,147.
There have been 1,239,674 poster scans to date.
