There are no new COVID-19 community cases to report today and 7 new positive COVID-19 border-related cases in managed isolation since our last update on Tuesday.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border is 5.
The total number of active cases in New Zealand today is 81.
Our total number of confirmed cases is 2,175. Globally, there have been 131,487,572 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2,857,702 deaths, reported to WHO.
Since 1 January 2021, there have been 43 historical cases, out of a total of 363 cases.
Of the new border cases,
- One new case arrived on 22 March, and tested positive around day 14. They are a contact of a case, and are in a quarantine facility in Auckland.
- Six new cases arrived separately on 5 April and tested positive around day 0. They have been moved to a quarantine facility in Auckland.
AUCKLAND FEBRUARY CLUSTER
Public health officials yesterday, 6 April, classified the Auckland February cluster as closed.
This is based on yesterday being 28 days after the last identified case in the cluster was classified as recovered.
The first cases in this cluster were reported to the Ministry of Health on 13 February.
The cluster was made up of 15 community cases.
All the cases in the cluster were able to be linked epidemiologically and through Whole Genome Sequencing.
The source of the outbreak has not been determined.
TESTING UPDATE
On Tuesday, 3,389 tests were processed.
In the past 7 days, 24,000 tests have been processed, with a seven-day rolling average up to yesterday of 3,429 tests processed.
The total number of tests processed by laboratories to date is 1,920,966.
Up-to-date information on all testing locations nationwide is available on the Healthpoint website: healthpoint.co.nz/covid-19/
VACCINATION DASHBOARD
Our key vaccination statistics are now posted on an online vaccination dashboard, which will be updated on Wednesday each week.
The dashboard provides a snapshot of vaccination progress, including:
- The number of people to receive their first vaccination
- The number of people to receive their second vaccination
- A graph which indicates the number of vaccinations administered each week vs the planned numbers.
Over the last week we’ve seen a small gap open between planned and actual vaccinations.
This is largely due to Easter, with both vaccinators taking a well-earned break and people, understandably, prioritising friends and family over getting a vaccination.
The dashboard also has:
- Vaccinations administered on a given day
- The number of first and second doses administered by individual district health boards
- Vaccinations by ethnicity (Māori, Pacific Peoples, Asian, and European/other and unknown), age and sex.
We’re also reporting on adverse reactions following immunisation.
Medsafe, New Zealand’s medicines regulator, will this afternoon publish its initial report on safety monitoring of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on its website. The report will cover reported adverse events following immunisation.
Medsafe will continue to provide updated information each week. Providing this information, which many other countries also do, is standard practice for Medsafe & making it publicly available is part of our commitment to transparency & ensuring people can access this info easily.
NZ COVID TRACER APP NEW VERSION RELEASE
The Ministry will be releasing a new version of the NZ COVID Tracer app later this week.
The new features will include:
- the dashboard showing how many days out of the past 14 you’ve used the app;
- the dashboard showing figures on how many New Zealanders are using the app – the same as the figures released regularly by the Ministry; and,
- a flashlight option for scanning in low light conditions – particularly useful for the winter months ahead.
Thank you to everyone who is using the app regularly and who has turned on Bluetooth tracing. Bluetooth tracing is now enabled on more than 1.2 million devices.
We’ve seen the value of the app when we’ve had cases of COVID-19 in the community.
Using the NZ COVID Tracer app is one of the things we can all do to help contact tracing go faster when a case is detected and stop the virus from spreading.
NZ COVID Tracer now has 2,774,952 registered users.
Total poster scans have reached 241,555,263 and users have created 9,034,132 manual diary entries.
In the 24 hours to midday yesterday, there have been 728,127 poster scans.
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Today the Government has announced we are temporarily suspending entry into New Zealand for travellers from India. This will take effect from 4pm on 11 April and remain in place until 28 April.
While New Zealand continues to enjoy effective elimination of COVID with no community transmission, the same is not true of the rest of the world.
The World Health Organisation global reporting shows that in just the last month cases of the virus have been on the rise again internationally after falling steadily over January and February, with surges in cases particularly in Brazil and India.
There is one new border-related positive COVID-19 case, in a worker at the Grand Millennium managed isolation facility.
The worker returned a positive swab after being tested on Tuesday.
The person returned high CT values which can mean it is either early on in their infection, nearing the end, or the case is historical. An urgent repeat test is being carried out today to give health officials a better understanding of this person’s infection.
Whole Genome Sequencing will be carried out.
The case lives alone and travels to work with a colleague. The case’s colleague has been informed they are a close contact, is self-isolating at home and will be tested today.
From 11.59pm Sunday 18 April, you can travel to and from Australia without having to go into a managed isolation facility.
People coming to New Zealand from Australia must:
• book a ‘green zone’ flight, i.e. passengers who have only been in Australia in the preceding 14 days
• complete a pre-departure health declaration and provide comprehensive contact details for their time in New Zealand, so they can be contact traced if needed
• not travel if they have cold or flu symptoms
• wear a mask on their flight
There are no new COVID-19 community cases to report today and 17 new positive COVID-19 border-related cases in managed isolation since our last update on Sunday.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border is 4. An additional 4 people have now recovered.
The total number of active cases in New Zealand today is 74.
Our total number of confirmed cases is 2,168. Globally, there have been 131,020,967 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 2,850,521 deaths, reported to WHO.
Since 1 January 2021, there have been 43 historical cases, out of a total of 356 cases.
New Zealand has signed an advance purchase agreement with Pfizer-BioNTech for 8.5 million more doses of its vaccine - enough to vaccinate 4.25 million people.
Our original advance purchase agreement was for approximately 1.5 million doses - enough for 750,000 people.
This decision is based on the Pfizer vaccine being shown to be about 95 percent effective at preventing symptomatic infection and is the only COVID-19 vaccine currently approved by Medsafe for use in New Zealand.
Having one vaccine, rather than multiple vaccines with multiple protocols, will simplify the rollout. It means that everyone in New Zealand can be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and have access to the same vaccine.
There are 5 new cases of COVID-19 in managed isolation to report today. One border-related case reported last night will be officially added to today’s tally.
There are no new cases in the community.
MARCH AIR CREW CASE
As reported by the Ministry last night, a border-related case of COVID-19 has been identified as part of routine surveillance testing.
The person has been transferred to Auckland’s quarantine facility.
Their household contacts have tested negative but remain in isolation at home as a precaution.