There are two new cases of COVID-19 to report in New Zealand today, both in managed isolation facilities.
The first case reported today arrived on October 31 from Singapore and tested positive around day 3 of their stay in
managed isolation.
The second case was detected in managed isolation in Auckland, after being given permission to join a family member
recently arrived from overseas. The family member has previously been recorded in our positive case totals. Today’s case
will be recorded as an import-related case.
Eight previously reported cases are now considered to have recovered, meaning our total number of active cases is now
67. All cases linked to the maritime company outbreak are now recovered.
Our total number of confirmed cases is now 1,617.
Yesterday our laboratories completed 6,391 tests for COVID-19, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to
1,120,130.
Cases linked to managed isolation in Christchurch
Teams are undertaking detailed work to ascertain the exact source of the infection of the two workers at the managed
isolation facility in Christchurch, although the genome sequencing from the first case reported indicates the lineage of
the virus is the same as five of the international mariners at the facility.
This includes interviews with cases, and genome sequencing of the second case.
All contacts of the two cases have been followed up and tested. All results we have returned to date are negative, with
a small number outstanding.
All staff who worked at the Sudima Hotel since 23 October have been tested, and all the results we have returned are
negative. At this stage we have not identified any further cases connected to these staff members, but we are continuing
ongoing monitoring of their contacts and of other staff at the Sudima. All their close contacts remain in isolation.
The Community & Public Health team in Christchurch is also developing an exit plan for the international mariners, which will involve a
risk assessment for their release, including any testing requirements.
We want to acknowledge the work being done at the Christchurch managed isolation and quarantine facilities. So far this
year, hardworking staff across these facilities have supported more than 5,000 people in their return to New Zealand.
It’s really important to emphasise the overall success of this work - it’s the hard work of teams at these facilities
which is ensuring we have the best support in place to help keep New Zealand and New Zealanders safe.
Ministry data
From today the Ministry has made some minor changes to how we publish COVID-19 data on our website.
This includes grouping data into categories including number, location and source of active cases, as well as ethnicity,
age, gender and hospitalisation of all cases. We are also adding explanatory information to provide more meaning and
context to data.
NZ COVID Tracer
There are now 2,340,900 users registered on NZ COVID Tracer.
The app has recorded a total of 107,046,261 poster scans and users have created a total of 4,465,289 manual diary
entries.