From 6am tomorrow morning, Auckland will move to Alert Level 3 and the rest of New Zealand will move to Alert Level 2. The measures will remain in place for the next seven days.
We have planned for the likelihood of further community outbreaks and have activated our national resurgence plan. We have stamped out the virus before and we can do it again.
COVID-19 UPDATE
There is one new case of COVID-19 in the South Auckland community.
The case is a family member of a student from Papatoetoe High School. That could provide a straightforward explanation for this infection, but in this case it has not
The Papatoetoe High School student in the household has tested negative on three separate occasions and has no symptoms for COVID 19.
That means we have no current known link for the case discovered today.
Genome sequencing is currently underway. This will tell us if this case is linked to the small outbreak we have been dealing with. At this stage, we assume it will be.
If we can’t immediately link a case person to person, what we call an epidemiological link, that is a significant issue. The second cause for concern is the exposure that the current case has had with others.
Listed amongst the places they visited while possibly infectious are a supermarket, a gym, and they attended classes at Manakau Institute of Technology. We will provide more details on the locations of interest in a separate post shortly.
These are well populated sites, and given the person’s infectious period dates back to last Sunday, we may well have close contacts who are already infected.
Based on this, we are in the unfortunate but necessary position of needing to protect Aucklanders once again.
AUCKLAND ADVICE
We are asking that people in Auckland stay home, and work and study from home if possible. The border around Auckland will be re-established and will match the border set up earlier this month.
Travel in and out of Auckland is for essential travel only. Those who received a border exemption when Auckland was moved into Level 3 earlier in the month, will not need to reapply.
Those exemptions will be reactivated.
We do ask for your patience and cooperation as Police work as fast as possible to set up checkpoints.
If you are an Aucklander, you can travel to Auckland to return home. But you should not travel out of the region unless you have to.
If you go outside your home maintain physical distancing of 2 metres, or 1 metre in controlled environments where you know the others present.
We are asking children to stay home from school.
In Alert Level 3 schools (years 1 to 10) and Early Childhood Education centres can open for children whose parents need to be at work.
Supermarkets, pharmacies, primary produce retailers, and petrol stations can remain open.
There is no need to rush out this evening to any of these places. We are asking all other businesses that usually interact face to face with customers to move to non-contact methods – click and collect, or online ordering.
The main rule here is maintaining physical distancing between staff and not physically interacting with customers.
Public venues will be closed. For example, libraries, museums, cinemas, food courts, gyms, pools, playgrounds, markets.
Gatherings outside of your bubble are prohibited, with the exception of groups of 10 for wedding services, funerals and tangihanga. Physical distancing and public health measures legally must be maintained at those events.
Healthcare services will revert to using virtual, non-contact consultations where possible.
The rest of New Zealand needs to remain vigilant. This means stay home if you’re sick or vulnerable, wash your hands regularly & well, & use the NZ COVID Tracer app by scanning QR codes & keeping your Bluetooth turned on in the app, or sign in if you can’t.
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For contact tracing purposes, anyone who attended one of the locations listed here during the relevant timeframes is considered to be a contact.
Out of an abundance of caution, we are asking individuals to follow the instructions below if they visited these locations during the times listed.
Following a possible exposure, the optimal timing for casual plus contacts to get a test is 5 days.
The advice below says what you need to do, including when you need to get a test.
Where the optimal time for a test is in the future, we’ll specify a date. Where the optimal time for a test has passed, we’ll specify the need for a test as soon as possible.
Mass gatherings will need to be limited to 100 people. Gatherings of up to 100 people are allowed for wedding services, funerals, and tangihanga.
Keep physical distancing of 2 metres from people you don’t know when out in public.
Keep 1 metre physical distancing in controlled environments like workplaces, where practical. Wear a mask or a face covering if physical distancing is difficult.
Testing centres across Auckland reported strong demand for testing this afternoon. All testing locations in Auckland are available on the Healthpoint website healthpoint.co.nz/covid-19/ and the Auckland Regional Public Health Service website arphs.health.nz/public-health-…
There are no new cases in the community to report today.
There is one new case of COVID-19 in managed isolation.
Auckland February cases contact tracing update
There are 3 categories of contacts related to the KFC exposure event.
KFC staff - there are 11 close plus contacts who worked at the same time as Case L. These people have all been contacted and will begin testing today, day 5 since their last contact. They will be isolating for 14 days along with their household contacts.
We've noticed a few questions about why we haven't moved up Alert Levels, despite there being new cases in the community this week. Here's a quick explanation.
We moved up Alert Levels on 15 February as the new case could not be clearly linked to the border.
Contact tracers needed time to investigate the source, and to identify close and casual contacts so that they could be tested and, in some cases, isolated.
It became clear there wasn’t widespread transmission and genome sequencing showed the new community cases were all linked to the first cases identified on the weekend of 14 February. This is a lower-risk scenario so we were able to move down to Alert Level 1, where we remain.
COVID-19 Update
There are 2 new cases of COVID-19 in managed isolation and one new community case, a person linked to the Auckland February cases and who has been in quarantine from Tuesday 23 February to report today.
The latest community case (Case L) is a household contact of cases I, J and K.
This person was tested on arrival into quarantine and returned a negative result. This individual then developed symptoms and returned a positive test.
Today, 25 February, we have three new cases of COVID-19 in managed isolation, and no new cases linked to the Auckland February cluster.
One of the three cases today in managed isolation today is a historical case and not regarded as infectious.
All 11 cases associated with the Auckland February cluster remain in the Auckland quarantine facility.
Genome testing results now available for Case K has shown it to be the B.1.1.7 variant and again very closely related to the genome sequence for Cases A and B.
This provides further reassurance that the cases from the additional household announced on Tuesday have not appeared from elsewhere in the community. All cases that have been sequenced in this cluster are genomically linked & are connected to the cases at Papatoetoe High School.