Brazil currently accounts for one-quarter of the world's daily COVID-19 deaths, and health experts are warning that the nation is on the verge of even greater calamity.
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There are 11 new Covid-19 cases in managed isolation related to new arrivals and no new cases in the community.
Of the new cases announced today, 10 arrived from India on a flight via the United Arab Emirates on Saturday.
They all tested positive on arrival during routine testing. Theother new case arrived on March 26 from Italy, via Singapore, and returned a positive routine test on day 1.
All 11 new cases are in managed isolation and quarantine in Auckland.
The Ministry of Health is carrying out additional testing including whole genome sequencing to discover whether any of the cases were related.
"Interviews, and where indicated, further testing will help to determine whether any of these cases are historical. Data tells us that since the beginning of the year at least one in eight Covid-19 cases is historical."
The Ministry said in a statement the latest cases showed the value of having day 0/1 testing in place.
"All people arriving into New Zealand must remain in their rooms until those day 0/1 tests results come back.
"It's also not uncommon to see some of the day 0/1 cases be reclassified as historical cases, which are not infectious. This is why we are continuing to publish the cumulative number of historical cases."
The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border is 4.
The total number of active cases in New Zealand today is 86, meanwhile the total number of confirmed cases is 2137.
Investigations are ongoing into the cases at the Grand Mercure Auckland managed isolation hotel. Photo / Supplied
As at 9am this morning, 236 of the 272 returnees had been contacted and 235 returned negative test results. One person returned a positive result classed as a historical infection based on further testing and serology results. Historical cases are not considered to be infectious.
The total number of returnees in this group has increased as further returnees took an exit test and isolated at home until the test returned a negative result. The assessment was that this additional step was needed until today, and it has now been lifted for anyone leaving the facility from now on.
On Sunday, 2748 tests were processed, out of 34,515 tests in the last week with a seven-day rolling average of 4931.
The total number of tests processed by laboratories to date is 1,887,079.
The NZ Covid Tracer app now has 2,767,434 registered users.
Total poster scans have reached 234,925,338 and users have created 8,854,214 manual diary entries. There have been 797,481 poster scans in the last 24 hours to 1pm yesterday.
