Amid revelations that at least 73 essential workers have tested positive for Covid-19 and four essential workplaces have seen transmission occur, Jacinda Ardern has said the Government could tighten Level 4 rules, Marc Daalder reports
The Prime Minister has said the Government could shore up Level 4 restrictions if Delta continues to transmit at essential workplaces.
Since the lockdown began, Jacinda Ardern said, about 25 cases have had exposure to locations outside of their households. Four essential workplaces have seen transmission between staff, though these have not been customer-facing. And the Ministry of Health told the New Zealand Herald on Sunday morning that 73 essential workers had tested positive for the virus.
"If we need to tighten up our restrictions further we will," Ardern said. She added that there wasn't yet a suggestion that any workplaces or staff had violated Level 4 rules.
"We want to cast our eye again over those [Level 4 operating rules] with a Delta lens."
The warning came as part of the daily Covid-19 update, in which Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said there were 83 new cases of Covid-19. That brings the total case count of the Delta outbreak to 511.
Most of the cases have been epidemiologically linked to the cluster, but 58 are still unlinked, Bloomfield said. There are seven sub-clusters within the outbreak, including the Māngere church (which encompasses 237 cases) and the Birkdale social group, which involves 68 cases.
There are 34 people in hospital, including two in intensive care, but all of them are in stable condition.
Of the 32,771 contacts identified as part of the cluster, 26,473 have formally been in touch with contact tracers. A slightly higher proportion, around 85 percent of the identified contacts, have returned a test result.
Ardern said that most of the cases who tested positive in recent days were known contacts of cases. More than half of Saturday's 82 new cases were household contacts of other cases and three-quarters were household contacts, or those who may have been at a location of interest.
Just two of Saturday's cases were infectious prior to lockdown, showing that most of the new cases had been infected during lockdown.
One of the key locations of interest that has been difficult to contact trace has been AUT. Ardern urged anyone with a connection to AUT to check the Ministry of Health's locations of interest page.
