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The minister in charge of managed isolation facilities Megan Woods says none of the staff there have tested positive, with 97 percent tested.
Woods has been speaking alongside head of managed isolation and quarantine Air Commodore Darryn Webb in an update this afternoon.
Webb says more than 44,000 people have successfully completed stays in managed isolation and quarantine and entered the community.
He says there is capacity for 6628 people across 32 facilities. There are 5035 people in managed isolation and quarantine and this is expected to rise to 5638 by the end of the week.
Watch the media briefing from about 1pm:
https://youtu.be/B_d63iWqBKg
Woods says 97 percent of the quarantine and managed isolation workforce have tested negative between 21 and 27 August. The 3 percent who were not tested were on leave or didn’t enter a facility in the period “under question”, she says.
Woods says on 21 August the Air Commodore Darryn Webb directed all staff continue to be tested. The next round of testing of MIQ staff is under way, she says, and will be completed on 6 September.
Some 97 percent of returnees’ day 12 tests were completed, and 95 percent of day three tests were completed.
Reasons why the day three tests may not have been done include medical exemptions or the individual may have been under six months old, she says.
“We know day three tests are only part of the management of people in managed isolation facilities, and with or without the test returnees are still managed in a way that still considers they may have Covid-19,” she says, adding that no-one leaves without a day 12 test.
Their statement follows the Ministry of Health’s latest update on Covid-19 case numbers, with 14 new cases of the coronavirus in New Zealand- five in the community and nine in managed isolation – bringing the total active cases to 132.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins this morning said there was no good reason to keep children away from school despite the Covid-19 outbreak.
“All of the new cases that we’re seeing of Covid-19 in the Auckland community are coming from known contacts so these were people who were already isolating so they wouldn’t be in school and they wouldn’t be in the workplace, he told Morning Report. “That should give people reassurance that this cluster is being contained.”
Follow RNZ’s live blog for the latest Covid-19 updates
Looking at the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on jobs and incomes, a report compiled by the Ministry of Social Development found the number of beneficiaries rose by 12 percent in April this year, the highest increase in the past 24 years.