Covid 19 Delta outbreak: 19 cases today including MIQ worker

The current boundary around Auckland will continue - even when the city moves to alert level 2, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has revealed.

There are 19 Covid cases in the community today.

Eighteen of the cases are in Auckland and the other is a child who attended Mangatangi School, who had been isolating. The school was at the centre of an outbreak earlier this month after children of a gang member freed on parole became infected.

An MIQ worker is also among today's cases. That case is at the Naumi Hotel facility and is being investigated to determine if it is linked to the community outbreak or not.

The worker's positive test was picked up during routine testing. The worker was vaccinated, director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said.

Of today's 19 cases,16 are known contacts of other people.

Bloomfield said they were expecting another 30 cases in the coming days, as 19 of the newer cases were linked to emergency or transitional housing.

Bloomfield said the transitional housing sub-clusters were a mix of hostels, motels and houses - and there was often movement between those places.

Asked about a person from Kaitaia who was arrested in Auckland and tested positive, Bloomfield said that person had not been infected in Kaitaia and extensive investigation had been done to ensure it.

Ōtara has been removed from the suburbs of interest - but Henderson and Papakura have been added.

There are now seven suburbs of interest. On how the outbreak was evolving, Bloomfield said there were initially four clusters that were active.

There were now several sub-clusters: two newly identified subclusters were a southeastern Auckland household's subclusters, and a West Auckland subcluster of households. Bloomfield said the new cases were coming from those two subclusters.

He said neither included specific gang households. The southeastern Auckland cluster was of five households, and included transitional housing units.

Bloomfield urged people from all suburbs of interest to get tested, regardless of whether they were symptomatic or not.

Nationwide, anyone with symptoms should get tested.

Bloomfield said a testing and vaccination centre would be outside the Bunnings and Mitre 10 stores in Manukau.

Auckland boundary will remain at level 2

Ardern has ruled out removing the boundary around Auckland, even if the city moves down to level 2.

Consideration was still being given to whether that alert level would change, and that decision would be made by Cabinet on Monday.

However, she said she wanted to provide some certainty that the boundary restrictions would remain in place, even if that happened.

The Government would continue to assess the role of that regional boundary but she reiterated she had no intention of lifting it on Monday.

Asked what it would take to ease that boundary, Ardern said Cabinet would be looking at lower-risk options for reducing the restrictions than the boundary.

She said one of the clusters was in West Auckland, which was why all Auckland was locked down. She urged those in Henderson and Papakura to get tested if they had even mild symptoms.

"We need everyone to be double vaccinated. Only three per cent of people in this outbreak were double-vaccinated."

She said achieving 90 per cent was possible: 92 per cent of over-65s had had at least one jab.

"It is possible to hit 90, and we need everybody to put that effort in."

Vaccinations were available at more than 1400 places, and help was on hand to get to those centres.

On vaccinations in Auckland, Ardern said about 83 per cent of people have had their first dose so far.

There was capacity to vaccinate the rest, if they turned up for it.

"If you are someone who is reluctant to get your first dose, please talk to someone else, It will help.

"We are at the hard end now. Those who took no convincing, they're done."

Ardern said the focus on the transitional housing places affected by Covid cases were initially on testing, and then vaccinating programmes would be done.

Health workers were discussing the vaccinations rollout with those people.

There were 45 new cases yesterday, ending a string of days of lower numbers – a result epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson described as a "wake up call".

"Auckland is not getting out of level 3 until we don't have mystery cases," Jackson said.

Of those cases, 12 were yet to be linked to the existing outbreak, and Bloomfield is expected to provide an update on whether those cases have now been linked.

It was also revealed that a number of cases are now coming from emergency and transitional housing units in Auckland, as well as from gangs.

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins this morning indicated today's numbers were expected to be lower - but also pointed the finger at people breaking the level 3 rules for spreading the virus.

While Act leader David Seymour has called for an end to the strategy of aiming for zero cases at any cost, Hipkins told Newstalk ZB they still wanted to get "down to zero" cases and the Government wasn't waving the white flag yet.

There are four days to go before Cabinet considers whether Auckland can move out of level 3 – a decision it will make next Monday. Hipkins said it was still too early to speculate on what that decision might be.

Ardern is also expected to try to boost the vaccination drive as the numbers lining up to book and get their first doses drop.

Ardern had issued a challenge to Auckland to get to 90 per cent by October – it was at 82 per cent yesterday.

Nationally, 77.5 per cent of those eligible have had at least one dose.

And after a long period of being at the top of Bloomberg's table of Covid-resilient countries, New Zealand had dropped to 38th position this week.

Ardern is also expected to talk about the move on a residency path for those skilled migrants that had worked in New Zealand throughout the epidemic: a long-awaited move.

The one-off resident visa would offer residency to about 165,000 migrant workers and their families, including more than 5000 health and aged-care workers, about 9000 primary industry workers, and more than 800 teachers.

There are also around 15,000 construction and 12,000 manufacturing workers on relevant visa types, some of whom will be eligible for the one-off pathway.

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