New Zealand has reported 28 new cases of coronavirus in the community, a drop of 21 compared with the previous day in an “encouraging” sign that the country’s lockdown is working, deputy prime minister Grant Robertson says.
One of the new cases was in Wellington while the remainder were in Auckland, which remains under a stricter lockdown compared to the rest of the country. The total number of people infected in the outbreak is now at 764.
There are 43 people in hospital, including nine in intensive care, with three on ventilation machines.
Health officials have now identified 37,620 close contacts of Covid-19 cases. Of those, 84% have been followed up and 87% have had at least one test. There are 261 locations of interest.
“These results are encouraging, but the job is not done,” Robertson told the daily press briefing. “We must continue to be vigilant and get on top of this outbreak.”
Covid-19 modeller at Te Pūnaha Matatini, Michael Plank, said the numbers are “clearly trending downwards”, but added there is still work to be done to eliminate the outbreak and get out of lockdown.
“The [numbers] tend to bounce around a bit from one day to another, but we look at how it is tracking over a period of a week or so, and there is a downward trend in those numbers now.”
“We’ve certainly hit the first peak, and hopefully it is the last peak but it’s not impossible that cases could go up again.”
Plank said those numbers could rise again if people did not abide by the lockdown measures.
“We need to keep making sure transmission rate is going down, so we can get back to zero.”
The director of public health, Dr Caroline McElnay, who was at the briefing with Robertson, agreed the both the drop in cases and a fall in epidemiologically unlinked cases was good.
“While this fall in today’s numbers is encouraging, we are mindful that these outbreaks can have a long tail and we can’t afford to become complacent. Ongoing investigations by Auckland Regional Public Health have resulted in the total number of unlinked cases falling from 65 to 31.”
McElnay expects the number of unlinked cases will also continue to fall.
Robertson also provided an update about the Covid-19 positive man who absconded from quarantine in Auckland on Thursday.
CCTV footage showed the man had walked home during the night, Robertson said.
“We can confirm there are no locations of interest and as far as we can ascertain, no contact with any person.
“There was no risk to public safety during this incident, however it is clearly a regrettable incident and one that is now being thoroughly investigated.”
