There are 76 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says. 63 have now recovered. There are 589 total cases now.
There are 76 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says.
One is a probable case that has now been confirmed, but there were no additional probable cases today, he said.
63 have now recovered. There are 589 total cases now.
12 people arein hospital, three are expected to be discharged soon.
One person in hospital with coronavirus died yesterday in Greymouth.
There has been an average of 1728 tests a day. Of 455 cases, 26 per cent are close contacts of existing cases and just 10 cases, or 2 per cent, are community transmission.
The remainder are travel related.
Bloomfield said people over 65, frontline health workers, pregnant women and those with respiratory conditions would have priority for flu vaccinations, and asked others to please wait.
"You should not be seeking a vaccination or expecting to be called until at least mid April."
He said 800,000 vaccinations had been distributed and there were plenty of vaccinations in the country.
Bloomfield urged people to sign up to Flu Tracker to report flu symptoms.
After the death in Westport of a woman who was originally believed to have influenza, Bloomfield said new guidance had been sent to DHBs to treat patients with influenza symptoms as if they were Covid-19 until the testing had confirmed otherwise.
On home support workers' concerns about visiting multiple homes without the equipment, Bloomfield said there was advice on the website now for their situation. He said they were now working with home care providers to ensure those workers had masks to use if required.
Bloomfield said there were nine cases in the Matamata cluster. It linked to a St Patrick's Day celebration at a local business in the town.
Bloomfield said there was now much more capacity to do contact tracing. There were 100 people in the national contact centre, and those numbers were increasing. Every contact for cases other than in the last two days had been followed up with a phone call.
On measures hospitals were taking, Bloomfield said anybody coming into the ED was being screened and if there was respiratory illness they would be taken to a different area. All visitors - from staff to courier drivers - were also being screened to ensure they had no symptoms.
More than 4540 New Zealanders had returned from overseas since the lockdown began.
Of those 94 were symptomatic and in quarantine, 1200 did not have a self-isolation plan so were in "managed self-isolation".
4200 reports of Kiwis allegedly flouting lockdown rules
Police Commissioner Mike Bush said the vast majority of people were complying well with lockdown conditions.
"We have tourists who think it's okay to drive around the country in their campervans. It's not okay."
Bush said three people have been arrested for persistent breaches.
Two were taken into custody and released later. One was still in custody, mainly because of other "outstanding matters".
He said the three arrested had been warned in the past, but were released without prosecution.
He said 1000 of the reports of non-compliance related to business, others were more general such as reports of a lot of people gathering in a particular area.
He said at the moment, it was better to get out and advise of the rules. He emphasised that people who were tourists should not be moving around the country. "I appeal to those tourists, stay where you are."
If there were persistent breaches, action would be taken.
He said checkpoints were not a part of the operating model, although some were taking place.
He was also working with those communities which were trying to set up their own checkpoints.
Bush said he was surprised how many people were not keeping social distance while walking around Oriental Parade in Wellington last night, saying some were clearly not in their bubble.
"If people aren't compliant we are going to have to revisit this."
On Gloriavale, Bush said local police were examining how the community was approaching the lockdown, but did not have further details.
Queenstown backpackers blasted
Bush also addressed reports of the backpacker party in Queenstown, saying it was "very poor advice" for those backpackers to have decided they were all in one bubble.
He said police had seen a small rise in family violence, but in the last few days that had reduced slightly.
"We have to stay the course on that." He said there had been a massive decline in public violence, and people being arrested and placed into custody more generally.
Two police staff have coronavirus
Bush said two police staff had tested positive for Covid-19.
He said one of the police with Covid-19 had been on active duty and contact tracing was underway. That officer had caught it earlier on, and police were now trying to boost the PPE equipment for police.
Asked what planning Bush had in place for more cases of Covid-19 within the police, Bush said there were contingency plans and police were looking overseas, such as to the NYPD.
He said wider testing of the police force members after the confirmed cases was about 380, but he did not know for certain. The two confirmed cases were not connected to each other.
PM to update
Later this afternoon, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will give an update after the Cabinet meeting.
It's understood they'll be discussing extending the definition of "essential goods".
Yesterday, the total number of Covid-19 cases reached 514 and New Zealand's first fatality to the virus was reported.
A 70-year-old woman, who had underlying health conditions, died in Grey Base Hospital on Sunday morning and it's not yet known how she caught the coronavirus.
It was originally thought the woman had influenza, so the 21 medical staff who treated her did not wear the visor required for Covid-19 patients but did use appropriate personal protection equipment for treating the flu.
The staff are now in self-isolation and healthcare workers from another hospital have been sourced to work at Grey Base Hospital.
Bloomfield told RNZ this morning that, as a result, procedures would change so that anyone who has symptoms of a respiratory illness, like pneumonia or bronchitis, is treated as if they have Covid-19 until proven otherwise.
Nine of the confirmed cases were in hospital - one in Whangārei, three in Wellington, one in Blenheim, one in Nelson, one in Waikato, one in Taranaki and one in Dunedin.
One person was in intensive care on a ventilator.
Bloomfield said the vast majority of confirmed cases were still linked to overseas travel or close connection with another confirmed case.
He had no doubt the levels of community transmission would be on the rise, but because of the delay in showing symptoms of Covid-19 rather the extent of the outbreak.
"The other important thing here is that the infections diagnosed today are people who were infected five, seven, 10 days ago, which is why we will expect to see the numbers increasing for a while yet," he told RNZ.
The Ministry of Health is now investigating seven clusters of the respiratory virus across the country.
These include Auckland's Marist College, which has 31 confirmed and five probable cases; and the World Hereford Conference, with 17 confirmed and two probable cases; and one in Hamilton's Atawhai Assisi Rest Home, which has 11 confirmed cases.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet will meet again this afternoon and supermarkets are on the agenda.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she wants to ensure that supermarket supply chains, pricing, and customer and staff welfare are all up to scratch, given their importance to New Zealanders during the lockdown.
"We don't have legal footing to enforce specials, but we can on price gouging," Ardern told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking today.
She added that the Government had seen no evidence of that so far.
