Covid 19 coronavirus: 14 close contacts of Northland community case test negative

VIRUS LATEST:
• Covid-19 has now claimed 2.13 million lives worldwide, with a total of 99.3m cases.
• Meanwhile NZ health officials are investigating a case of the virus in the community - a woman, 56, who was infected in a managed isolation facility with the South African strain.
• Australia swiftly halted its travel bubble with NZ after news of the latest case.
• Audrey Young: Aussie suspension adds to Cabinet's Covid agenda
• Cabinet meets today to discuss the latest outbreak, though Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says it's premature to discuss a change to alert levels.
• Covid-19: Traveller's worries over mingling at isolation hotel.
• Covid contact's dad aghast at advice; expert responds.

Fourteen close contacts of the Northland Covid community case have tested negative, Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins says.

Three more close contacts are still waiting for test results.

It follows Hipkins yesterday announcing that two close contacts of the case, her husband and hairdresser, were negative.

Thousands more people who have had Covid-19 tests in the past two days should get their results today.

14 test results are in for close contacts of our latest COVID-19 case - all negative. 3 more pending. Pretty encouraging news to start the day.

— Chris Hipkins (@chrishipkins) January 25, 2021

The testing will give a clearer picture of whether the virus has spread after a 56-year-old woman tested positive for Covid-19 after leaving managed isolation in Auckland and then travelled widely in Northland.

By 9am this morning more than 120 cars were lining up at the new testing station at the Ruakākā racecourse.

Many in the queue had lined up yesterday but had been unsuccessful in getting tested.

Ruakākā resident Irene Teruki waited for about seven hours at the refinery before being told she would face another long wait as nearby port workers were being tested around 5:30pm.

With only about 90 cars in front of her this morning, she was optimistic she would get the test today. "I have faith, it's way closer than I was yesterday."

There are over 120 cars lined up at the new testing station at the Ruakākā racecourse this morning. Photo / Adam Pearse

A lot of people were caught out by the change in venue. Almost all of the people spoken to initially went to the refinery before being told the testing station had been moved to the racecourse.

Meanwhile at the Winger Cres testing centre in Kamo there were 50 cars in the queue just before 10am today.

An improved traffic system is in place, with cones used to create a third lane for vehicles.

Traffic is able to flow through, avoiding a repeat of yesterday's traffic which created major road blocks that police were called in to manage.

One couple in the line said they had waited at Pohe Island for two hours yesterday, only to be turned away because of traffic blocking the road.

They arrived at the Kamo testing station at 8.30am this morning and have around 30 cars ahead of them. The man cannot return to work until he has a negative Covid test result.

They were at the Fat Camel Cafe hours after the infected woman was.

The queue of cars at a Covid testing centre in Kamo today. Photo / Tania Whyte

Third attempt at getting a test

Toni Anderson, of Whangārei, is on her third testing station after getting turned away from Kamo early yesterday morning and then Pohe Island after a five-hour wait.

She and her partner arrived at the Kamo testing station queue around 8.30am yesterday. An hour later they had made it to the turn off into Winger Cres when a traffic management worker told them Kamo was full and they would have to go to Pohe Island.

"We went there and waited five hours. We managed to get into the carpark though," Anderson said.

Toni Anderson at the Kamo testing site. Photo / Tania Whyte

"It was just crazy."

Anderson said she understood that wait times were going to be long but yesterday was inexcusable.

"I know people who waited for 10 hours. They should've known that Northlanders were going to jump straight in the queues to get tested whether they had symptoms or not."

She was shocked she counted only two nurses working at Pohe Island testing station yesterday.

Anderson said the Northland DHB needed to make good on their vows to improve local testing stations.

"It's just words. We are used to hearing them say sorry," Anderson said.

"The proof is in the pudding if people aren't waiting 10 hours in line today."

Anderson said she had already had over an hour's wait on the phone to Healthline to find out if she should head to a testing station.

"There were like 214 people in front of us on the phone."

Anderson and her partner had been in multiple shops the same day and times as the woman who tested positive.

She used her bank account to track her movements as she had let her contact tracing app habits slip.

She felt for the infected woman who had received a lot of backlash online.

"It's not her fault. It's just an unfortunate situation," Anderson said.

'Better to be safe than sorry'

Whangarei Heads resident Tony Stitt headed to Pohe Island for a Covid test after he started developing flu-like symptoms.

"I was at the Parua Bay Tavern the day after the Covid lady," Stitt said. "I thought it's better to be safe rather than sorry."

Tony Stitt at Pohe Island. Photo / Tania Whyte

Tales of yesterday's wait times at Pohe Island - some up to 10 hours long - were not on Stitt's radar until he arrived at the testing station today at 8.30am.

He had clocked up four hours wait time when the Advocate spoke to him.

"When you're sitting in a car with flu-like symptoms and all you want to do is lie down, it makes everything seem s*****."

Stitt was frustrated nobody had spoken to him about what to expect since he arrived.

"I can understand no one can give you waiting times. It's not a major but when you're feeling s***** every little thing makes you grumpy."

Stitt said he came prepared with a cup of coffee and an audio book.

'It's flowing really well today'

A Whangarei couple turned away twice from Pohe Island yesterday were concerned today would be a repeat.

However, Christina Conaglen and her partner Jade were pleasantly surprised at 8.30am when they drove straight into the Pohe Island carpark, which was clear of yesterday's long queues.

"It's flowing really well today," Conaglen said. "Such a great surprise being able to drive straight in."

Jade and Christina Conaglen at Pohe Island testing station. Photo / Tania White

Changes to today's experience included four portable toilets, more than four nurses on site, and improved communication between people waiting to be tested and staff.

"There have been staff going around and explaining that there are going to be people ahead of us who were turned away yesterday," Conaglen said. "It's been really good - much, much better today."

As the couple drove down Riverside Dr towards the testing station their fingers were crossed the DHB had come through on their promises of improvements.

"We came around 9ish yesterday and it was all out on the road by then and backed up to the roundabout," Conaglen said.

They waited almost three hours until a worker asked them to leave and return at 3pm. The couple live around 30 minutes away in Whangarei Heads.

"We came back at 3pm and it was closed," Conaglen said.

She said her mother, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, waited from 8.30pm to around 4pm yesterday to be tested.

"Because of her condition she had to wait for a test. She didn't come prepared - no food, no water. She went straight home for dinner."

The couple were taking no chances today as they came equipped with charged phones, water, snacks, pillows, laptops, and paper to draw or write to pass the time.

The new Covid community case sparked thousands to queue for tests yesterday at Northland pop-up stations. Some waited in baking temperatures for more than three hours.

Health officials stressed that only those who had symptoms, or had visited the more than 30 sites the patient had visited, should seek a test.

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins. Photo / Getty

The Northland community case, a 56-year-old woman who returned from overseas earlier this month, contracted the South African variant, called B.1.3.5.1, while in managed isolation at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland. The variant is believed to be more infectious than the original strain of coronavirus.

Transtasman flights

The emergence of the community case appears to have prompted Australia to immediately suspend its one-way travel bubble with New Zealand for at least 72 hours.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she had told Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison her Government had confidence in its processes.

"It is Australia's decision as to how they manage their borders," she said.

Australia also wants anyone who arrived there from New Zealand on or since January 14 to isolate and get tested for the coronavirus.

How did community case get the virus?

Hipkins said was "highly likely" the woman had contracted the virus from a fellow returnee towards the end of her stay in managed isolation at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland, between January 9 and 13.

Travellers who stayed in MIQ at the Pullman between January 9 and 24 are being asked to self-isolate "immediately".

Director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield told Newstalk ZB's Heather Du Plessis-Allan an investigation had started to find out how the woman was infected.

He said health officials "are not leaving any rock unturned".

While he wasn't sure if it was the case at the Pullman, he said some managed isolation facilities put occupants in vans to transport them to the location where they can complete their physical activity.

"That would be of course one of the places we would be looking."

He said the investigation would review what mix of people travelled in the vans.

"Whether they are people, some of whom might have arrived just recently, tested negative, but ... mixed with people who've been there a while, and I guess that is one of the opportunities there could be for cross-infection so we'd want to just shut that down."