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New Zealand|Politics

Covid 19 coronavirus: 13 new cases - 11 in the community

3 minutes to read
PM Jacinda Ardern and Meghan Woods revealed that hundreds of millions of dollars will be provided to help NZ secure a Covid-19 vaccine when one becomes available. Video / Mark Mitchell

PM Jacinda Ardern and Meghan Woods revealed that hundreds of millions of dollars will be provided to help NZ secure a Covid-19 vaccine when one becomes available. Video / Mark Mitchell

Amelia Wade
By
Amelia Wade

Political reporter

There have been 13 new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday - 11 of which are in the community as Auckland edges closer to coming out of lockdown tonight.

Ten are clearly epidemiologically linked to the Auckland cluster, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

Six of the cases are associated with the Mt Roskill Evangelical Church sub-cluster – four are within the same household and two attended church services.

The other four other cases are contacts of previously reported confirmed cases.

It means there are now 133 cases linked to Auckland cluster and 18 to Mt Roskill "mini-cluster". New Zealand's previous biggest cluster, a Bluff wedding, stood at 98.

The person who hasn't yet been epidemiologically linked to the cluster is being interviewed today to determine their possible links to the cluster, the ministry said.

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By Saturday morning, the contact tracing team had identified 2489 close contacts of cases, of which 2425 have been contacted and are self-isolating. Contact tracers are in the process of contacting the rest.

The ministry said for the period August 20-26, 82 per cent of close contacts were contacted and isolated within 48 hours of a case being notified, which met the "gold standard" of 80 per cent.

There are now 132 people connected to the cluster who have been moved to the quarantine facility at the Jetpark Hotel - including 82 people who have tested positive.

Eleven people are in hospital, including three in intensive care - one each in Middlemore, North Shore and Waikato Hospitals.

Another seven people have recovered from Covid-19, bringing the number of active cases to 137, of which 117 are in the community and 20 are in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ).

The total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 is now 1376.

On Friday, laboratories processed 9991 tests as the Government works to test 70,000 people over a week at a rate of 10,000 a day.

The full, up-to-date list of testing sites in Auckland is at www.arphs.health.nz/covid19test

Testing sites in other parts of the country can be found on the Ministry of Health's website.

Almost two million people have now downloaded the Covid Tracer app, which has had 1,919,100 registrations.

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