Covid 19 Delta outbreak: Ten new cases in BOP, one in Rotorua

There are 10 new Covid-19 community cases in the Bay of Plenty and one in the Lakes District Health Board region today.

All of the BOP cases are in the Tauranga area and the Lakes case is in Rotorua

Nine of the BOP cases are linked to previously reported cases, and one is still being investigated for potential links.

Contacts are being identified and will be contacted for testing and isolation advice.

The Rotorua case is a contact of a previously reported case and they are currently isolating.

There are 76 new cases in New Zealand with 51 in hospital and five in ICU.

There are two cases in Tauranga Hospital.

There are several new locations of interest for the region. Click here.

Arrival of Omicron

The ministry said all of the passengers on the same ​international and domestic flights as NZ's first Omicron case are being treated as close contacts, and isolating in a managed isolation facility.

Two other passengers on the international flight have tested positive for Covid-19 and one further passenger's positive result is being investigated as a historical infection.

These three people have been moved to a managed quarantine facility. Whole genome sequencing has identified one of these infections as the Delta variant.

Yesterday it was revealed contact tracing was under way to identify passengers on the international flight from Germany that arrived here on December 10 and the chartered internal flight between Auckland and Christchurch.

The infected traveller is fully vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

As a precautionary measure, all passengers on the affected flights are now completing 10 days at a managed isolation facility rather than spend the last three days of their isolation period in self-isolation. This will mean they are not able to be out before Christmas.