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There are nine new cases of Covid-19 in the community in New Zealand and two in the country’s managed isolation and quarantine facilities, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield has revealed.
The latest from live update:
- There are 11 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today. Nine are related to the existing cluster and two are imported cases.
- Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said of the nine new community cases, five are related to different churches in South Auckland and four are household contacts.
- Dr Bloomfield said there are a total of 223 possible contacts from the churches who have been identified as linked to the cluster.
Of those 223, 170 have been tested and the results are pending, he said. - There are eight people receiving hospital-level care for Covid-19 and all of these are part of the Auckland community cluster. Two are in Auckland City Hospital, one in Northshore Hospital and five in Middlemore Hospital. Seven of these people are stable in a ward and one remains in ICU in Middlemore.
- An additional person in Waikato Hospital was hospitalised but not as a direct result of Covid, Bloomfield said.
- The new cases bring the total number of confirmed cases to 1315. The number of active cases is 10 – 16 are of these cases are in managed isolation.
- One of the new imported cases is a female in her 30s who travelled from London via Hong Kong and arrived in NZ on 15 August. She became unwell on 19 August.
- The second is a male in his 50s who returned from Basrah via Dubai and Sydney between 6 and 17 August.
- Both cases have been transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.
- Of the 89 cases in the community, 88 are linked to the cluster and one is under investigation.
- On the Rydges maintanence worker, Bloomfield said the possibility that he caught it from the lift is still being investigated. The St Lukes mall case has now been linked to the current cluster through genome tracing.The source of exposure is still being investigated but this case and another may have been on the same bus, Dr Bloomfield said.
- Dr Bloomfield said more than 9000 applications for border exemptions have been received, more than 4000 were processed yesterday and more than 1200 have been approved.
- Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said vilifying those who caught the virus won’t be tolerated.“It is those shame others, those who seek to blame, they are the dangerous ones.”“There is no room for division when it comes to fighting Covid.”
- Ardern said good progress is being made on identifying the perimeter of the current cluster.
- Ardern said the efforts of Aucklanders who have followed the alert level 3 rules have not been in vain.
Watch the briefing here 1pm:
Source: rnz.co.nz Republished by arrangement.