3 New Cases Of COVID-19 In Managed Isolation

There are three new cases of COVID-19 to report in New Zealand today in managed isolation and quarantine.

One recent arrival from Romania landed in New Zealand on 3 November via Qatar and Australia. They tested positive at around day 12 routine testing and are now in the Auckland quarantine facility.

The second case arrived from Australia on 1 November and was also detected on testing around day 12. This person has now also transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

The third case arrived from the UK on 12 November and tested positive on arrival and transferred to Auckland’s quarantine facility.

We are also reporting today a weak positive test result in a close contact who is already in Auckland’s quarantine facility.

This individual lived in a neighbouring apartment in Vincent St apartments to case D

The individual’s initial test result was negative, but a subsequent test has today returned a weak positive result. A further test is now being taken. They are currently regarded as a case under investigation.

Auckland Regional Public Health had already done some initial scoping of this case and will now be doing more detailed work on tracking and tracing any outstanding close contacts. Further information will be provided in later updates.

Testing

Yesterday there was increased demand for community testing across Auckland’s testing network with 5400 tests done in Auckland alone – more than half of it in general practices.

A full list of testing sites in Auckland is available on the Auckland Regional Public Health Service website.

Anyone in the Auckland area, and indeed throughout New Zealand, who has cold or flu symptoms should get a test and stay at home until they receive a negative test result.

In addition to the testing advice provided yesterday which remains current, we are now asking that if people were in Auckland CBD at locations of interest, they get a test regardless of symptoms. These locations are listed here: https://www.arphs.health.nz/news/auckland-restaurants-and-department-low-risk-from-new-community-case/

This is an enhanced surveillance tactic to ensure we are not missing any cases who may be asymptomatic. The list of locations can change as more information becomes available.
Numbers

One previously reported case has now recovered, meaning our total number of active cases remains at 56.

Our total number of confirmed cases is now 1,643.

Yesterday our laboratories completed 6,320 tests for COVID-19, bringing our total number of tests completed to date to 1,169,062.

NZ COVID Tracer

There are now 2,359,400 registered users of the NZ COVID Tracer app.

Poster scans have reached 114,559,362 and there have been 4,767,798 manual diary entries.

Over a million scans took place yesterday, the most since 1 October, which means around 1 in 5 app users were scanning the codes.
It is encouraging to see that many New Zealanders are responding to the call to get back into the habit of scanning the QR codes.
The Ministry continues to encourage everyone to scan the QR codes wherever they see them, as the more we all scan, the safer we’ll all be.

The faster we can contact trace, the quicker we can get ahead of the virus and prevent spread in the community.

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