New Covid cases down to 15, vaccinations at 4.3 million
From the Ministry of Health and RNZ:
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says there are no unlinked cases today.
The one case from yesterday that was not linked to the outbreak, has now been linked, Dr Bloomfield said.
He said 10 cases in the outbreak are yet to be epidemiologically linked.
Bloomfield says the focus for testing is in the following suburbs - Massey, Māngere, Favona, Papatoetoe, Manurewa and Ōtara.
Anyone with cold and flu symptoms is urged to get a test.
He says families with children are urged to get tested together.
So far this month, 15,685 essential workers in the Auckland region have been tested with no positive cases identified.
"On contact tracing we're now focusing our efforts on 1242 contacts that are under active management. This is a change to the reporting total context for the whole outbreak. The number of contacts under active management is now down to a much smaller number as ... majority of our contacts have now either returned negative tests or have had exposures more than 18 days ago and we're not generating significant numbers of new contacts outside of households."
"There was a positive wastewater result received from a sample taken last week in Pukekohe."
Bloomfield says Public Health has advised there were four cases in the area who were in quarantine but have now returned home. "This could explain the result. But anyone in the Pukekohe area, who has symptoms, please go and get tested."
There are no other "unexpected detections" in wastewater samples in Auckland or around the country that have returned positive results.
Yesterday, the ministry reported 33 new community cases of Covid-19.
14 September
| Cases | |
| Number of new community cases | 15 |
| Number of new cases identified at the border | Two |
| Location of new cases | Auckland |
| Location of community cases (total) | Auckland 953 (382 of whom have recovered); Wellington 17 (12 of whom have recovered) |
| Number of community cases (total) | 970 (in current community outbreak) |
| Cases infectious in the community | Eight (26%) of yesterday’s cases have exposure events |
| Cases in isolation throughout the period they were infectious | 23 (74%) of yesterday’s cases |
| Cases epidemiologically linked | All 15 are household contacts |
| Cases to be epidemiologically linked | Zero of today’s cases |
| *Cases epidemiologically linked (total) | 942 (in current cluster) (10 unlinked) |
| Number of sub-clusters | Nine epidemiologically linked subclusters. The two largest subclusters are the Mangere church group: 381; and Birkdale social network cluster: 77. There are nine epidemiologically unlinked subclusters. |
| Cases in hospital | 22 (total): North Shore (4); Auckland (8); Middlemore (10) |
| Cases in ICU or HDU | Four |
| Confirmed cases (total) | 3,610 since pandemic began |
| *Historical cases, since 1 Jan 2021 (total) | 142 out of 1,792 since 1 Jan 2021 |
| *Contacts | |
| Number of active contacts being managed (total) | 1,242 |
| Percentage who have received an outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements) | 89% |
| Percentage with at least one test result | 85% |
| Locations of interest | |
| Locations of interest (total) | 133 (as at 10am 14 September) |
| Tests | |
| Number of tests (total) | 3,158,224 |
| Number of tests total (last 24 hours) | 9,279 |
| Tests rolling average (last 7 days) | 12,735 |
| Tests in Auckland (last 24 hours) | 7,823 |
| Testing centres in Auckland | 22 |
| *Wastewater | |
| Wastewater detections | One sample from Pukekohe detected the COVID-19 virus. Further tests are underway |
| COVID-19 vaccine update | |
| Vaccines administered to date (total) | 4,380,953; 1st doses: 2,897,385; 2nddoses: 1,483,568 |
| Vaccines administered yesterday (total) | 54,877; 1st doses: 34,145; 2nd doses: 20,732 |
| Mâori | 1st doses: 269,506; 2nd doses: 129,609 |
| Pacific Peoples | 1st doses: 174,961; 2nd doses: 89,576 |
| NZ COVID-19 tracer | |
| Registered users (total) | 3,213,919 |
| Poster scans (total) | 356,409,054 |
| Manual diary entries (total) | 16,217,756 |
| Poster scans in 24 hours to midday yesterday | 2,145,540 |
New cases identified at the border
| Arrival date | From | Via | Positive test day/reason | Managed isolation/quarantine location |
| 9 September | Serbia and Montenegro | United Arab Emirates | Day 3 routine | Auckland |
| 10 September | United Kingdom | United Arab Emirates | Day 2 / routine | Auckland |
*Linked cases
The total unlinked cases is of the cases reported within the past 14 days. The remainder of cases are now older than 14 days and have been closed. It is important to note that no onward transmission has occurred from these cases.
*Historical cases
Five previously reported historical cases had a health status of ‘not recovered. These has been updated in our systems and have now been added to the historical case count, which is why the number has increased.
*Contacts
We now have 1,242 contacts under active management. This is a change from reporting total contacts across the whole outbreak. The number of contacts under active management has fallen considerably over the past two weeks, as the majority of our contacts had exposures more than 18 days ago and have been closed.
*Wastewater
Health officials are aware of two recently recovered cases, who were released from quarantine on 30 August and 4 September who live in the same area as the latest detection. Further investigations are being carried out.
Testing reminder
It’s pleasing to see testing numbers up yesterday.
Testing around New Zealand, and especially in Auckland, remains an essential part of our response to this outbreak. We want to find cases and testing provides confidence for understanding the extent of any spread of COVID-19.
Workers who have been invited to have a voluntary one-off asymptomatic COVID-19 test are able to return to work while they wait for their test results as they are not symptomatic.
There is a focus on health sector workers from district health boards, primary care and community health providers, as well as some Government agencies, emergency services, supermarket operators, supply chain, post and logistics, petrol stations and dairies, transport operators and some local council workers.
These groups of workers are being contacted and asked to go to their local Community Testing Centre, and for a few organisations we are providing on-site testing.
For the remainder of today and tomorrow, a pop-up testing site has opened at the Gull service station at Hampton Downs.
We are continuing to remind people across Auckland to get tested if you have symptoms, especially if you live in and around Mt Eden, Massey, Favona, Ôtara, Papatoetoe, Mângere and Manurewa.
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