19 cases of Covid-19 in MIQ, one new border case

Ministry of Health update

April 8, 2021

There is one new border-related positive Covid-19 case, in a worker at the Grand Millennium managed isolation facility.

The worker returned a positive swab after being tested on Tuesday.

The person returned high CT values which can mean it is either early on in their infection, nearing the end, or the case is historical.

An urgent repeat test is being carried out today to give health officials a better understanding of this person’s infection. Whole Genome Sequencing will be carried out.

The case lives alone and travels to work with a colleague. The case’s colleague has been informed they are a close contact, is self-isolating at home and will be tested today.

Auckland public health officials have this morning carried out scoping interviews with the case to determine any locations of interest but at this stage we understand the case was not at work yesterday and did not visit anyone.

If any locations of interest are identified, we will update the Ministry’s website and send out push notifications.

Grand Millennium Auckland managed isolation facility
As previously reported, a cleaner at the Grand Millennium managed isolation facility tested positive for Covid-19 on March 22. Whole Genome Sequencing results for that case indicated the person was infected with the B.1.1.7 variant, and was found to be a close match to a returnee who had been in the facility.

As a result of this earlier case and today’s case, an out-of-cycle Infection Prevention and Control audit of the Grand Millennium facility will be carried out, similar to that previously done at both the Pullman and the Grand Mercure facilities.

Covid-19 case reporting
Further to the 1 new border-related Covid-19 case from the Grand Millennium managed isolation facility, there are 19 new positive Covid-19 cases in managed isolation to report today.

There are also 4 cases which have been classified as historical. These cases were previously under investigation and have now been confirmed as historical, and therefore counted in today’s tally. Historical cases are deemed not infectious.

The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border is 7.

10 previously reported cases have now recovered. The total number of active cases in New Zealand today is 95.

Our total number of confirmed cases is 2199.

Since 1 January 2021, there have been 43 historical cases, out of a total of 383 cases.

Historical cases

These cases were previously under investigation and have now been confirmed as historical, and therefore counted in today’s tally. Historical cases are deemed not infectious.

Testing update
On Wednesday, 6646 tests were processed.

In the past 7 days, 24,694 tests have been processed, with a seven-day rolling average up to yesterday of 3,528 tests processed.

The total number of tests processed by laboratories to date is 1,927,613.

Up-to-date information on all testing locations nationwide is available on the Healthpoint website: https://www.healthpoint.co.nz/covid-19/.

NZ Covid Tracer App
NZ Covid Tracer now has 2,776,116 registered users.

Total poster scans have reached 242,421,822 and users have created 9,058,898 manual diary entries.

In the 24 hours to midday yesterday, there have been 828,029 poster scans.

The newest version of the NZ Covid Tracer app is now available for download from the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Version 4.1.0 includes a number of new features that make the app faster, easier to use and more useful. Information about the new features was provided in yesterday’s media release.