After yesterday's shocking rise in Covid case numbers, health officials were pleased today to report only 60 new cases in the community.
Some 56 of these new cases today are in Auckland, including one on Waiheke Island, while four are in Waikato. As at 10am, 38 of these cases are linked and 22 remain unlinked, with investigations continuing to help determine their connection to the outbreak.
In the Waikato, two of the four new cases are in Te Awamutu, and two are contacts of known cases and are already isolating.
Auckland's number of recovered cases is now at 1,362 and 10 of Waikato's 56 cases have recovered.
The total in the outbreak is now at 2,158.
Of yesterday's 92 cases, 36 have had exposure events and 56 were in isolation during their infectious period.
In total for unlinked cases, there are 166 cases unlinked from the past 14 days.
There are now 43 people in hospital. Seven people are in North Shore, 13 in Middlemore, 22 in Auckland and one in Waikato hospitals. There are five people in ICU or HDU.
There are also two cases at the border in managed isolation.
Auckland update
Public health officials are modifying the approach to suburban testing following an increase in cases, particularly on the North Shore and New Lynn.
As the outbreak is now more dispersed, the approach is moving away from suburbs of interest and will instead concentrate on areas with higher positivity rates where the risk of unidentified cases is higher.
Health officials are asking people in New Lynn and the North Shore suburbs of Rosedale, Redvale, and Bayswater - either vaccinated or unvaccinated - to get tested as soon as possible if they have even mild symptoms.
This testing will help to provide assurance that any undetected spread of Covid-19 in these communities is identified as quickly as possible.
Testing is available at community testing centres in:
- Health New Lynn, Totara Health Services, McCrae Way, New Lynn – 8.30am – 4.30pm.
- North Harbour Stadium, Oteha Valley Road in Carpark B – 8.30am – 4.30pm.
- Northcote Community Testing Centre, corner of College Road and Kilham Avenue – 6.30am – 6.30pm.
- An additional testing site will be available from tomorrow in Wairau Valley.
Testing is also available at GP and Urgent Care clinics.
New Lynn’s Shadbolt Park has been reclassified as an exposure event rather than as a location of interest and has now been taken down from the Ministry of Health website list of locations of interest.
Low dose, expired vaccine cases
National director Covid-19 vaccination and immunisation programme Jo Gibbs has reported an incident in which six people received a low dose of the Covid-19 vaccine in the Bay of Plenty, and an incident where a small number of people received expired vaccines in Wellington.
Those in the Bay of Plenty who were affected have been contacted and offered vaccination.
The clinical processes and systems around the administration of the vaccination are being reviewed and the district health board is working with the provider to strengthen these to prevent an incident like this from happening again.
Gibbs also reported an incident at a vaccination site in Wellington last week where 15 people received a COVID-19 vaccination 24 hours after it expired. No one has been harmed from receiving the expired doses.
Capital & Coast District Health Board has contacted the affected people and is encouraging them to get vaccinated again.
The Ministry has apologised for what has happened and says such incidents are not common.
Vaccination update
A total of 42,809 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine were administered yesterday. Of these, 10,392 were first doses, and 32,417 people became fully vaccinated.
Auckland remains at 89% for first doses but 2,799 of first doses administered yesterday push the percentages closer to 90%. A total of 9,971 Aucklanders became fully vaccinated.
A total of 382,141 (67%) first doses have been administered to Māori so far, and 261,711 (46%) Māori are fully vaccinated.
Across the country, 3,593,488 first doses (85%) have been administered and 2,837,706 (67%) New Zealanders are fully vaccinated.
