There are no new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand. On the parliamentary rugby game this weekend, Bloomfield said a few nicknames had been suggested including Don't smash Ash, but he had settled on The Eliminator.
There are no new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand.
The last community transmission case was 83 days ago.
Health Minister Chris Hipkins and director general of health Ashley Bloomfield have provided the latest update on Covid-19.
Bloomfield said five cases had recovered, so there were now 22 active cases.None of them were in hospital.
The total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 remains at 1205, which is the number we report to the World Health Organisation.
Meetings with clinical leaders were also being held to drive home those key messages to increase testing rates, he said.
Medical Colleges survey
There had been 500 responses to the GP survey that was sent out two days ago, which would look at, among other things, how often Kiwis were declining to be tested.
"Even though we have no community transmission, if you have been offered a swab there is a good reason for that. Please take that test," Bloomfield said.
The case definition changes at the end of June separated people who were of high suspicion - such as border workers - and these people needed to isolate while awaiting their test result. But people not considered higher risk didn't need to.
Bloomfield said there will be a rolling programme to test people working at quarantine and managed isolation facilities.
Covid app
The NZ Covid Tracer app has now recorded 618,000 registered users.
There have been 80,463 posters created to date and 1,533,448 poster scans.
Bloomfield said he wasn't so much "disappointed" in the take-up of the Covid tracing app, but he encouraged people to use it.
Hipkins said the app was still being improved, but it was valuable to download the app because it updated contact details with the Health Ministry.
Hipkins said the updated tracing app would allow people to manually add their movements and events.
A more comprehensive digital diary would help in rapid contact-tracing, he said.
Those app updates should be available at the end of the month, he said.
'The Eliminator'
Hipkins, who is State Services Minister, wouldn't put a timeline on how long it would take Ministerial Services to look into whether former minister Iain Lees-Galloway had misused any taxpayer funds related to his affair.
On the parliamentary team's rugby game this weekend, in which Bloomfield is on the opposing team, he said he hadn't been training enough and he hadn't played for 35 years.
He said a few nicknames had been suggested including Hospital Pass and Don't smash Ash, but he had settled on The Eliminator.
He joked that Minister Peeni Henare had assured him that no one on the parliamentary rugby team would tackle him.
He was listed as openside flanker but hoped he would play on the wing.
Mobile data
Hipkins said the cost of mobile data was a barrier to people accessing Covid-19 information.
The Ministry of Health was working with Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees to make information websites free for mobile access. Data will be charged back to the ministry.
He said he had met with the assurance committee for contact-tracing and he expected, within a day or two, to receive its final report and recommendations.
He will outline the details of the report next week, he said.
No cases yesterday
Yesterday there are no new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, and the total number of active cases was 27.
They were all contained in quarantine and managed isolation facilities, and there had been 82 days since the last community transmission case.
A total of 2191 tests were processed on Tuesday, more than double the previous day but still well short of the Government's target - based on advice from public health experts - of 4000 a day.
Medical experts have suggested that 5000 a day would be a better target.
High rates of testing are critical to ensuring confidence that there was no community transmission.
The lack of testing has been an issue for weeks after Hipkins first told the Health Ministry that the numbers were too low and needed to be ramped up.
Earlier this week Bloomfield said testing numbers had dropped off in part because people had become complacent and were declining to be tested.
