No community cases; 5 new cases and 4 new historical cases of COVID-19 in managed isolation

There are no cases of COVID-19 to report in the community in New Zealand today.

There are five new cases of COVID-19 to report related to recent returnees in managed isolation facilities, since the Ministry's last update yesterday.

Six previously reported cases have now recovered.

The number of active cases in New Zealand is now 48.

There are also four new historical cases to report – all of whom are also in managed isolation facilities. A previously reported case, from 11 July, has now been reclassified as a historical case. All five historical cases are included in our confirmed case tally.

Since 1 January 2021, there have been 98 historical cases, out of a total of 631 cases.

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

Our total number of confirmed cases is 2,447.

New border cases in New Zealand

* The first test for this case, on day 3, returned an indeterminate result and was repeated at day 5

** This person is a mariner, unrelated to the Viking Bay or Playa Zahara. This person's travel history is still being determined. We expect to be able to provide an update following case interviews.

Historical cases identified at the border

* These cases travelled together as part of a travel bubble

Update on the Viking Bay

Four crew members remain in quarantine onboard the Viking Bay fishing vessel at Queens Wharf in Wellington.

The crew members will continue to be tested during their quarantine.

The remaining 16 crew members remain in quarantine in a Wellington quarantine facility onshore.

The crew member who was transferred to the onshore quarantine facility on Tuesday night after becoming unwell, has now returned a second negative test.

Update on the Playa Zahara

On arrival at Lyttelton Port, 13 of the crew will be moved to a quarantine facility in Christchurch.

Five crew will remain aboard to maintain basic functions of the vessel.

The transport of the 13 crew to the quarantine facility will be done using standard Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) protocols, including the use of appropriate PPE. IPC protocols will also be adhered to for the ship while it is docked at the port.

The timing of the ship's arrival is not being provided at this stage for security reasons.

The most recent crew aboard the Playa Zahara arrived in New Zealand on June 18 and spent two days at a managed isolation facility in Auckland. They provided negative pre-departure tests before arriving in New Zealand and again tested negative before boarding the ship.

The 13 crew who will be moved to the quarantine facility also includes the two crew who returned negative tests.

Whole genome sequencing of the crew aboard the Playa Zahara is underway.

Testing update

The total number of COVID-19 tests processed by laboratories to date is 2,386,215.

On Thursday, 6,070 tests were processed across New Zealand.

The seven-day rolling average is 6,650.

For all testing locations nationwide visit the Healthpoint website.

There were 8,403 tests completed in Waikato from 11 June to 14 July. This represents around two thirds of the number of tests done since the cyber attack on 17 May. The outstanding test results are expected to be uploaded within the next few weeks.

NZ COVID Tracer

NZ COVID Tracer now has 2,897,951 registered users.

Poster scans have reached 306,340,313 and users have created 11,945,340 manual diary entries.

There have been 692,781 scans in the past 24 hours to midday yesterday.

The NZ COVID Tracer app remains one of the most important ways people can keep a record of where they've bee. It also helps to support contact tracers in tracing potential close and casual contacts of people who have tested positive for COVID-19.

We recommend people continue to scan using the NZ COVID Tracer app. The more we all scan, the safer we'll all be. The data is stored on your phone until you choose to share it.

Your efforts to scan in are helping New Zealand's response to COVID-19.