News
There has now only been three new cases in the past 14 days.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 remains at 1504.
The total number of recovered cases is 1461 with only 22 active cases still in New Zealand, Dr Bloomfield said.
There are no new deaths to report either and one person remains in Middlemore Hospital.
There were 1841 tests processed yesterday, taking the total number of tests to 263,156 so far.
The most recent case in the Southern district was reported on 18 April. Since then there have been no new cases in the district, making today the 38th consecutive day of no new cases in the Southern DHB region.
Bloomfield is confident contact tracing is ready, if needed, once gatherings of 100 people are allowed from Friday.
He told Morning Report today tracing that number of people could be done “very quickly”.
During his update this afternoon, Dr Bloomfield said 405,000 have registerered for the NZ Covid Tracer app, an increase of 25,000 on the previous day.
Bloomfield said data from mid April to mid May showed 82 percent of people could be contact traced within two days.
Last from today’s live update:
- No new cases of Covid-19 to report in New Zealand to report, total number remains 1504 – Dr Ashley Bloomfield
- Total number of recovered cases is 1461 with only 22 active cases still in New Zealand, Dr Bloomfield said.
- No new deaths to report either and one person remains in Middlemore Hospital.
- 1841 tests were processed yesterday, grand total is 263,156 completed test.
- 405,000 registrations have occurred on the Covid tracer app in New Zealand, an increase of 25,000 on the previous day.
- On quarantine, around 8000 New Zealanders have finished the quarantine process after returning from New Zealand. 10,000 New Zealanders have undergone the quarantine process.
- Dr Bloomfield says following a high court ruling allowing a person to bypass quarantine to visit their dying relative, the MoH has allowed more exemptions for people to do the same. Didn’t reveal the total number of people who have been given exemptions.
- On sport, Dr Bloomfield says yes community sport will be able to go ahead on the new rules allowing 100 people to gather in one place, however large sporting events like Super Rugby won’t be able to have fans in the stands until level one at the earliest.
- Dr Bloomfield says he had seen reports of a vaccine possibly being available in September. He said while he would welcome that, he doesn’t believe that is a realistic time frame given the development, testing and manufacturing of it. Believes it will take longer than that. Also said around 100 different vaccines are being developed worldwide and New Zealand is taking part in that development.
- On the timeframe of a vaccine, Dr Bloomfield believes it will take between 12-18 months for one to be available for the public.
- Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern now addressing the media at Parliament.
- Today’s media briefing is addressing MBovis, the disease that has hampered the beef and dairy industry.
- Minister of Agriculture Damien O’Connor says more than 150,000 cows have been eradicated because of the MBovis disease. Says that’s 1 percent of the cattle population in New Zealand.