Saturday: 20 new community cases - 4.6 million vaccinations

by Peter Newport - Sep 18, 2021

From the Ministry of Health:

18 September  

There are 20 new community cases today. 19 of these are household or known contacts and only one of these remains unlinked. Interviews are underway with that person to determine how they are linked to the current outbreak. As noted yesterday, we are expecting some fluctuations in case numbers at this point in the outbreak. 

12,427 tests were taken yesterday, including more than 7,000 swabs taken in the Auckland region, and more than 1,500 essential worker tests. We have also had over 1,000 saliva tests since Monday with the majority in the last 48 hours. Over 400 employers will be instigating saliva testing for almost 4,500 employees across New Zealand. 

Testing at high levels in Auckland remains an essential part of our outbreak response to detect every community case and stop onwards transmission.  

We continue to urge anyone in Auckland with cold or flu symptoms, no matter how mild, to come forward to be tested. 

In addition, both people with and without symptoms who live in a suburb of interest are asked to get a test. These are: Mt Eden, Massey, Māngere, Favona, Papatoetoe, Ōtara, Manurewa. 

 

Cases   
Number of new community cases  20 
Number of new cases identified at the border  Four  
Location of new cases  Auckland  
Location of community cases (total)  Auckland 1,010 (625 of whom have recovered); Wellington 17 (16 of whom have recovered) 
Number of community cases (total)  1,027 (in current community outbreak)  
Cases infectious in the community   Seven (64%) of yesterday’s 11 cases have exposure events 
Cases in isolation throughout the period they were infectious   Four (36%) of yesterday’s 11 cases 
Cases epidemiologically linked  19 of today’s cases 
Cases to be epidemiologically linked  1 of today’s cases 
Cases epidemiologically linked (total)  995 (in current cluster) (7 in past 14 days unlinked)  
Number of sub-clusters  Nine epidemiologically linked subclusters. Of these, one is active, seven are contained and one is dormant. The three largest subclusters are the Māngere church group: 384; and Birkdale social network cluster: 80; secondary community transmission associated with the Māngere church group 166. 

There are ten epidemiologically unlinked subclusters. 

Cases in hospital  10 (total): North Shore (1); Middlemore (6); Auckland (3) 
Cases in ICU or HDU  Three 
Confirmed cases (total)  3,682 since pandemic began 
Historical cases, since 1 Jan 2021 (total)  151 out of 1,864 since 1 Jan 2021  
Contacts   
Number of active contacts being managed (total):  1,140 
Percentage who have received an outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements)  94% 
Percentage with at least one test result  82% 
Locations of interest   
Locations of interest (total)  142 (as at 10am 18 September) 
Tests   
Number of tests (total)  3,218,752 
Number of tests total (last 24 hours)  12,427 
Tests in Auckland (last 24 hours)  7,411 
Tests rolling average (last 7 days)  12,775 
Testing centres in Auckland  21 
Wastewater*   
Wastewater detections  There are no unexpected detections.  
COVID-19 vaccine update   
Vaccines administered to date (total)  4,630,806; 1st doses: 3,049,241; 2nd doses: 1,581,565 
Vaccines administered yesterday (total)  60,480; 1st doses: 33,048; 2nd doses: 27,432 
Māori  1st doses: 286,766; 2nd doses: 138,377 
Pacific Peoples  1st doses: 184,868; 2nd doses: 95,701 
NZ COVID-19 tracer   
Registered users (total)  3,228,277 
Poster scans (total)  366,380,713 
Manual diary entries (total)  16,505,506 
Poster scans in 24 hours to midday yesterday  2,524,913 

 

 * There was no detection of COVID-19 in a wastewater sample collected on 14 September from Snells/Agies. This follows a detection from this site on 7 September, it is likely that this earlier detection was from known cases in the area. Recovered cases can continue shedding viral matter for weeks after recovering.  

 

Subcluster reporting 

A number of clusters are no longer cause for concern as we are not seeing new positive cases within them. Each cluster that remains of interest, could be considered as a big bubble with the majority being close-knit groups of households There has been good communication and engagement with these groups of households. 

 

Additional reporting will now include the number of subclusters that are active, contained, dormant or closed, based on the time since the last case associated with the subcluster was reported, and factors like whether the case was a household member. This helps us determine the risk associated with each subcluster.  

 

• Active subclusters: Cases reported within the previous 14 days and are not household or other known contacts of previous cases  

• Contained subclusters: Cases reported within the previous 14 days and are household or other known contacts of previous cases  

• Dormant subclusters: No cases reported in the previous 14 days  

• Closed subclusters: No cases reported in previous 28 days 

 

Confirmed cases identified at the border 

 

Arrival date  From  Via  Positive test day/reason  Managed isolation/quarantine location 
16 September  UAE  Malaysia  Day 0 / routine  Auckland 

16 September 

India 

Serbia Montenegro / UAE 

Day 0 / routine 

Auckland 

 

 

Historical cases identified at the border 

 

Arrival date  From  Via  Positive test day/reason  Managed isolation/quarantine location 
14 September  Russia  Singapore  Day 0 / routine  Christchurch 

11 September 

Sri Lanka 

Full travel history to be confirmed 

Day 0 / routine  

Auckland 

 

 

 

 

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