Covid 19 coronavirus: No new coronavirus cases in Northland for 19 days in row

No new cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in Northland while more than 5600 tests have been carried out to date. Photo / Peter de Graaf

There have been no new cases of Covid-19 in Northland for nearly three weeks as hundreds continue to be tested daily across the region.

Northland District Health Board has not seen any confirmed or probable cases for 19 consecutive days as of yesterday, while 5611 tests have been carried out across primary care, Northland DHB hospitals, community-based testing centres and aged residential care.

Northland has 26 confirmed and two probable cases with all bar four now recovered.

Two new cases outside Northland were yesterday announced by director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield, bringing the national total since the pandemic began to 1488.

The confirmed case is a student at Marist College in Auckland, one of the country's biggest coronavirus clusters.

The probable case is a household contact linked to the St Margaret's rest home cluster, Bloomfield said.

There was also one more death yesterday - another resident of the Rosewood Rest Home in Christchurch - which brings the national death toll to 21.

In Northland, four people are self-isolating in the community and 24 have now recovered.
They include 18 European, eight Māori, and two others. All confirmed cases of Māori ethnicity have now recovered.

Two hundreds and four people were tested in Northland on Tuesday alone and Northland DHB expects an increase in coronavirus testing as winter approaches.

Patients admitted to Northland DHB hospitals are routinely tested for Covid-19 if they show any signs or symptoms of illness.

As at 8am yesterday, 12 of the 34 patients in hospitals were under investigation as per the Ministry of Health guidelines while results for the remaining 22 returned negative.

The Government will today release the rules for alert level 2, which are still being worked through, then decide on Monday whether to move down levels.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said while the country has achieved a great deal in keeping Covid-19 cases at the lowest it possibly could, she urged Kiwis to maintain the good run of numbers.

Bloomfield also said the low number of cases was encouraging, but repeated the message that we were not out of the woods yet.

"Do not give it an inch," he said.