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The Ministry of Health is reporting 33 new Covid cases in Auckland and two in Wellington, bringing the total number of community cases in the latest outbreak to 107.
The latest figures would seem to make it absolutely certain that the Government's decision later in the day would be to extend the current seven-day lockdown period.
This is the release:
There are 35 new cases of COVID-19 in the New Zealand community to confirm today. Of these 33 are in Auckland and two are in Wellington.
This brings the total number of cases in the community outbreak to 107.
All of the cases have or are being transferred safely to a managed isolation facility, under strict infection prevention and control procedures, including the use of full PPE.
As previously indicated, it’s not unexpected to see a rise in daily case numbers at this stage. At its peak last year, New Zealand had a daily total of 89 new cases.
The total number of community cases in Auckland is now 99 and Wellington’s number of community cases has increased to eight.
Of the 107 cases in the cluster, 72 are already epidemiologically linked to other community cases identified in the outbreak. Investigations are continuing to determine whether and how the remaining 35 cases are linked to the outbreak, however most have a plausible link on initial assessment. For example, people were at a location of interest. We will continue to release this information and new locations of interest as it becomes available.
ESR also continues to run whole genome sequencing on cases. Yesterday 29 samples were sequenced and all were confirmed as being linked to the Auckland outbreak.
There are three new cases in recent returnees in managed isolation facilities.
New cases identified at the border
Arrival date From Via Positive test day/reason Managed isolation/quarantine location 5 August * Belgium Full travel history to be confirmed Contact of a case Auckland 5 August * Belgium Full travel history to be confirmed Contact of a case Auckland 17 August Singapore Full travel history to be confirmed Unknown Christchurch *These cases are in a family travel bubble
The total number of active cases being managed in New Zealand is currently 154.
Since 1 January 2021, there have been 123 historical cases, out of a total of 880 cases.
Our total number of confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic is 2,698.
Testing
Yesterday, 35,766 tests were processed across New Zealand.
Testing centres in Auckland had another busy day yesterday with just over 17,000 swabs taken across Auckland, with around 11,000 at community testing centres and around 6,000 at general practice and urgent care clinics. This was our biggest day to date at our community testing centres.
If you were at a location of interest, at the specified times, or have cold and flu symptoms, please call Healthline on 0800 358 5453 for advice on testing.
By calling Healthline for advice on testing, people who have been at locations of interest at relevant times are logged into the contact tracing system. This means their swab can be tracked and processed faster by the laboratories.
There are 16 community testing centres available for testing across Auckland this afternoon, including a new site at Pukekohe
More than 3,850 tests were processed yesterday for Wellington and the Hutt Valley with 11 community testing centres operating, and around 32 GPs open for testing.
District Health Boards remain focussed on meeting testing demand and standing up additional testing centres if, and when, needed.
When you go for a test, please wear a mask, scan in to the QR codes located on site and if possible take your NHI number with you. This is likely to speed up the process.
You’ll be able to find your NHI number of a hospital letter, a prescription or prescription receipt. The Ministry has also established a new 0800 number to find out - 0800 855 066.
For up-to-date information on all testing locations, please visit www.healthpoint.co.nz/covid-
19/ .The total number of COVID-19 tests processed by laboratories to date is 2,727,853.
The seven-day rolling average is 23,721.
Wastewater testing
ESR is today collecting wastewater samples from sites throughout New Zealand for testing. There are no new findings to report today.
Yesterday we reported COVID-19 had continued to be detected at Moa Point in Wellington and in the Auckland region, but that samples taken from other sites in Wellington at Porirua, Seaview and Karori and now from the North Shore at Rosedale and Albany, were negative.
Samples taken on Friday and Saturday returned no other unexpected detections anywhere else in the country.
ESR continues to test wastewater at 41 sites across the country, covering 3.7 million New Zealanders. Of the 41 current sites, 13 are in Auckland and four are in Wellington. ESR is in the process of adding additional sites.
Contact tracing
Public health staff across New Zealand continue to contact trace, with a focus on higher risk locations.
The number of contacts has increased significantly. This is something we expected as we identify more cases and test in large numbers.
As of 8am today, 13,230 individual contacts have been identified – and this number will increase throughout the day, as records are fully processed.
The majority of these contacts are close contacts.
Of these contacts, 6,773 have been contacted by public health staff and are self-isolating, and 42% have had a test.
Work is underway to contact the remaining 6,457 contacts.
Locations of interest
We are continuing to add locations of interest as interviews from confirmed cases completed by public health staff.
There are now more than 280 locations of interest listed on the Ministry’s website.
Of these, 11 locations of interest are in Wellington, a few are scattered across the North Island and the rest are located in Auckland. There are also two flights between Auckland Wellington.
We will continue to update this regularly. There is now an interactive map that makes it easier to identify locations of interest, and you can also search locations.
The Ministry’s website also includes advice on what to do if you were at any of these locations at the time when you could potentially have been exposed. Text message alerts are being sent to people who scanned in using the COVID-19 Tracer App at locations during the relevant times.
If you were at a location of interest at the specified time, please self-isolate and call Healthline on 0800 358 5453 for advice on testing.
Crowne Plaza investigation update
Public health officials are continuing to investigate those who used the atrium thoroughfare at the Crowne Plaza while the earliest identified case was in the lobby, as there is a possibility of air flow between the two spaces.
A total of six people walked in the open walkway while the case was in the lobby, of those four have been identified and three have tested negative and one person is in the process of getting a test. There are two people still to be identified, which Police are assisting with.
This throughfare is located inside the Crowne Plaza building and is not the outside walkway which is used to access the Huawei Centre.
It has been confirmed the case was indoors while a very small number of people walked in the open walkway, which is well ventilated.
Section 70 Notices
We’re reminding people that a Section 70 notice remains in place, placing a legal requirement on all people who were at locations of interest at the relevant times to follow the instructions regarding isolation and testing.
It is also very important that essential workers regularly check the locations of interest so they can isolate immediately and get tested if they have been at any of these locations at the relevant times.
Another Section 70 notice is in place, applying that to household members of those who have been at locations of interest or have been categorised as a close contact. These household members are required to isolate until the contact has returned a negative day-five test result.
Household members are not required to be tested unless they develop symptoms.
The requirements of this second notice do not apply to people who are required to provide an essential health service as long as they are vaccinated, the household member who visited the location of interest has had a negative result, and no one in the house has symptoms.
COVID-19 vaccine update
Yesterday, we administered 35,800 doses nationally. This was made up of 26,835 first doses, and 8,965 second doses.
More than 2.78 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to date (to 11.59pm on 22 August).
Of these, 1.77 million are first doses and more than one million are second doses.
More than 156,000 Mâori have received their first vaccination. Of these, more than 92,000 have also had their second vaccinations.
More than 103,000 doses have been administered to Pacific peoples. Of these, more than 63,000 have also received their second doses.
NZ COVID Tracer
NZ COVID Tracer now has 3,026,123 registered users.
Poster scans have reached 327,988,169 and users have created 13,896,382 manual diary entries.
There have been 477,029 scans in the 24 hours to midday yesterday.
“It’s really pleasing to see we’ve hit three million users on the NZ COVID Tracer App. Thank you to everyone who has become a user of the app and to those who continue to scan QR codes to keep a record of where they’ve been.
"Over the past week we’ve seen how important these records have become – making it easier for contact tracers as we all work to keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19,” says Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.
56 Comments
This may be the beginning of the end of our elimination strategy.
SG and AUS are going down the track of ramping up vaccinations to over 70% and then "living with COVID".
We had a good run eliminating previous variants of COVID. Now it's time to be agile and change tack.
They'd probably need to get to over 90% vaccination just to hold fast. Here is a survey from the British Office of National Statistics based on sampling for antibodies:
https://ibb.co/4F8GmYH
It doesn’t appear viable to continue with the elimination strategy and go back to level 1. All level 4 is doing is buying some time for more people to get vaccinated. 1 case has turned into over 100 and they don’t know how it got out. Without lockdown, there would be 1000’s by now. The R0 value needs to be much closer to 1 before there is any chance of ‘just living with it’ and the consequences being remotely acceptable. The vaccine appears to be the only way out and we are nowhere near the coverage that is needed.
I don't think we can start calculating R0 Before the end of the week when all the pre lock-down covid contact tracing and testing has been completed but even then we are still going to get household infections from the pre lock-down infections which will interfere with the basic calculation.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/covid-19/449759/lockdown-should-impact-on-co…
As if no one from Auckland travelled to Queenstown to go skiing. Geez this whole drama is because we traded Auckland’s safety for Queenstown’s desire to make a few bucks from Aussie tourists.
Solution - close all quarantine centres in Auckland and move them all to the deserted south - use the empty Queenstown & Chch hotels and spare 1.7 million people the pain of ongoing lockdowns.
I worry about the end game here for New Zealand or to put it bluntly, the lack of a plan B to reopen to the world. I am not convinced vaccinating alone will get us there.
We will get to what, 70%, maybe 75% at the most of us vaccinated. Then there will be a big push to get more. That might get it to 80%. Might.
We have to open the borders once everyone who wants to be vaccinated has been vaccinated. The virus will be straight back, people will get infected and our health system, it seems, won’t cope. The ICU beds just aren’t there and we already know that at certain times of the year, particularly winter, the health system gets over-run.
Keeping the borders closed until more ICU beds are built and staff are trained would take years - and really is not an option.
As someone in good health who will be vaccinated, I am all for opening the border up when a percentage of people are vaccinated, but I get the feeling many would not be happy with this and prefer we don't open up / accept further lockdowns. So how do we get out of this?!
There no reason for plan B as long as everyone keeps up the pretence of plan A. The narrative is vaccinate enough and covid goes away and until at one of our political parties wants to start challenging that we are going to be able to keep ignoring Israel's, Iceland's, Hawaii's ... experience with vaccination programs.
(Plan B could be a nation wide prophylactic program to work with vaccines but we would have to do testing for that ourselves but that would require too much political bravery.)
Maybe we keep vaccinating hard out till the end of November then start to open up slowly (i don't mean we're in lockdown till then) and no more lockdowns. That would mean the inevitable spike of covid amongst the unvaccinated (and some vaccinated) would be during summer when the health system has a little more slack. It's all about timing now.
Effectively 1 week of AUS-NZ bubble for 4 weeks of level 4 national lockdown!
Pretty bad deal! Gosh!
I have a hunch that the government will start slowly pushing for the USA/UK style of dealing with Covid 19 after the AUS giving in.
I can see that the AUS will give in very soon!!
The supposed index case arrived from NSW and tested positive day one. Never had a chance to use the exercise area adjacent to the Huawei Building walkway. However it has already been reported that a family of three that arrived at or about the same time as the index case and stayed on the same floor as the index case. All tested positve on day 12. So how many times did they use the exercise area during the 12 days they were at the Crowne Plaza? Newsroom reported in mid July that the access to the Huawei building that passed by the exercise area was in the words of some observers "an outbreak waiting to happen". The access way had only recently been resigned in July to accommodate work on the City Rail Loop. In the days of Risk Management Plans for everything. Who signed this off?
It would be good to see what the plan is for school kids etc in L4. Online learning is a joke, my son went online today 3 out of 26 logged on, then teacher said don't worry about it. So do they say no school holiday at end of September...they probably should. Then you have the Uni kids, then the bushiness, who get some wage supplement and then government answer is borrow your way out of it, cause we are. There is just a serious lack of solutions to the many problems lockdown causes, they have had 18 months since last one to come up with solutions. to these issues.
The people who pressured for opening the bubble to Aussie in the first place should take a major share of the blame for this introduction of Delta to NZ and the current scare and lockdown. And the particular person who brought it over and probably did not reveal full details of his movements in Aussie or health.
Now that we have started on this path of locking down the country to minimise the spread to a manageable level, we have to continue it, painful as it might be.
Vaccination has been the Achilles Heel here. Hopefully, the current scare will propel more people to get the jabs. May be testing and jabbing can be combined now that more people are waiting in the Q to test ?
Should we all have some fun and predict what will happen here on in? Your top 3.
Here's mine:
1) We won't eliminate delta. Govt to announce they will no longer go with elimination within 4 weeks.
2) Vaccination levels will increase significantly as a result of 1) and we will achieve 70% rates by year's end (including 12 yo and above).
3) Auckland house prices to rocket up min 10% by end of summer.
OK Flyer,
1/ Vaccination will not be compulsory, uptake rates will not reach government ideals /fantasy.
2/ Compliance with lockdowns will reduce.
3/ domestic violence will increase.
4/ Our strategy has holes in it with delta's infectivity being the culprit, but everyone will blame someone or something else.
5/ What mortality rates and whose will we accept will be difficult to debate, let alone how much each life is worth.
3) Auckland house prices - they have little correlation with sanity so anything could happen. Those who have been earning during lockdown (generally the middle class) will have savings and be looking to invest so it is possible. However imagine if for the next few years masks, scanning in, testing and mini-lockdowns which are all irritations, will apply mainly to locations with Covid found in the waste-water and that will be always be Auckland. Eventually the big mobile businesses will move out similar to Sleepyhead - Universities and lawyers and Fonterra HQ and Media outlets will migrate to Huntly or Taupo; house prices in Auckland may end up less than Hamilton or Whangarei.
Whilst official data provided by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) shows that just 704 people have died of Covid-19 in the whole of Scotland who had no other pre-existing conditions between March 2020 and July 31st 2021.
However, data released by Public Health Scotland shows that between the 8th December 2020 and 11th June 2021 a total of 5,522 people died within 28 days of having a Covid-19 injection with 1,827 deaths being due to the Pfizer jab, 3,643 deaths being due to the AstraZeneca jab, and 2 deaths being due to the Moderna jab.
Link?
Do you just mean that some people died withing 28 days of having the jab, not because of?
You really should learn to fact check before posting...
https://fullfact.org/health/daily-expose-covid-deaths-vaccine-deaths/
"The article also claims that, between 8 December 2020 and 11 June 2021, a total of 5,522 people in Scotland died within 28 days of having a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
This is based on data released by Public Health Scotland (PHS) and is true, but the articles misinterpret these deaths as deaths due to the vaccine.
As the PHS report clearly states: “The analysis includes all recorded deaths due to any cause and does not refer to deaths caused by the vaccine itself.”
It also adds that “the observed number of deaths is lower than expected compared with mortality rates for the same time period in previous years”."
""lower than expected compared with mortality rates for the same time period in previous years"" now that proves being vaccinated even with no Covid present helps extend your lifespan. Wonderful how stats can be interpreted. Pleased I'm vaccinated; now hoping a Delta specific Pfizer vaccine booster shot will be available soon.
From a public health perspective this is high stakes as delta's presence in the community vs effective anti-viral measures are exquisitely balanced. The scramble to vaccinate enough people and generate meaningful antibody cover is on. Lockdown compliance is not a certainty and wanes with time with the risk that elimination remains out of grasp. The meat in the sandwich is the health system. The DHB where I work have lost huge staff numbers because they are self isolating. Some of the lockdown measures are becoming self defeating.
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