There are 6 new cases of COVID-19 in managed isolation to report in New Zealand since our last media statement yesterday.
There have been no new cases in the community to report.
The two people who tested positive in Auckland remain in the Auckland quarantine facility.
These two people have ten close contacts, who have all been tested and returned negative test results. Yesterday we reported there were 11 close contacts – on further investigation one person has now been deemed not a contact.
As we have reported, the person who tested positive in Northland is now recovered. The 11 close contacts of this person have returned negative tests, and there are no further exposure events. The close contacts will start to be released once their isolation period is complete.
Of the 353 guests who left the Pullman between 9 January and 24 January, we have negative results for 313 people. Most of the remaining people have indicated that they have had or are having a test. Additional efforts are underway today to follow up the outstanding people and confirm the results of testing.
Locations of interest
As of yesterday afternoon, 249 people had received a push notification via the NZ Covid Tracer app – having scanned in at a location of interest. Locations of interest are available on the Ministry of Health website.
While the risk from these locations is most often very low, casual contacts who attended one of the locations during the relevant timeframes are asked to stay at home, get a test and wait until a negative result comes back.
Testing in the community
We are continuing to see higher than usual demand for testing in Auckland and Northland.
This week there have been 3926 community tests completed in Northland (including Mangawhai). This represents nearly two percent of the total Northland population, and almost half that number were tested in a single day - January 25.
This is an outstanding effort by those in the community and the local health workforce.
Yesterday (29 January) our laboratories had registered 2,940 community tests taken from the Auckland metropolitan area. Our colleagues in Auckland tell us that this figure is likely to exceed 4000 as the tests and samples are logged and processed. And noting that this figure does not include testing at the border and in managed isolation and quarantine facilities.
On Wednesday, a total of 6,121 tests were processed nationally.
The seven-day rolling average for testing up to yesterday is 5,435 tests processed.
Two new pop up testing stations have been opened north of Auckland to manage the expected demand in testing. The pop up testing centres are in Orewa and Albany and are in addition to the six regional community testing centres (one in Northcote – on the North Shore) and a number of other primary care and urgent care clinics offering testing. They are confirmed to operate today.
