New Zealand has one new case of Covid-19 today - a child in managed isolation. Today's case is the child of two people previously reported as having Covid-19.
New Zealand has one new case of Covid-19 today - a child in managed isolation.
He or she is the child of two people previously reported as having Covid-19.
They arrived in New Zealand from Italy on July 4. The family is in quarantine at the Commodore Hotel in Christchurch.
Health Minister Chris Hipkins and director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield are giving today's Covid-19 update.
Health Minister Chris Hipkins and director general of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield arriving for their Covid-19 media update. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Some 154 people were at the hotel. The people were cleared for re-entry 20 minutes after the alarm went off and social distancing was practised, he said.
It was 76 days since the last case of community transmission in NZ, and there was no evidence of community transmission, Bloomfield said.
He said there had been tens of thousands of tests in the community during the past few weeks.
Hipkins said it was difficult to gauge how many New Zealanders would come home in coming weeks.
Asked if more isolation facilities were needed, Hipkins said the Government was focusing on the current facilities.
"There is a lot that goes into running these facilities," he said, adding there are health and security teams needed.
He said the Government continued to make sure everything was robust.
Hipkins thanked people who had isolated on arrival. Some had stayed as long as 28 or 30 days, Bloomfield said.
He acknowledged that was a long time, especially for families with young children.
Hipkins said facilities had a stash of nappies and toys for children, and most people were "being amazing".
Hipkins said a lot of people were working shifts at the isolation hotels.
"They are highly staffed," he said, but couldn't give an exact number.
He said testing on those people was starting to "ramp up".
Health Minister Chris Hipkins and director general of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield during their Covid-19 media update at Parliament today. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Bloomfield said a lot of staff were from the Defence Force and were rotated in and out - and tested often.
One previously reported case is now considered to have recovered, so the number of active cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand remains at 27.
No one in New Zealand is receiving hospital-level care for Covid-19.
Yesterday, New Zealand's laboratories completed 2899 tests, and 726 of those were taken at managed isolation or quarantine facilities. The total number of completed tests is now 436,233.
Hipkins said he was confident testing rates would come up.
The NZ Covid Tracer app has now recorded 607,000 registrations after a "flurry" of Kiwis downloaded it overnight.
Hipkins said there had been 11,000 new registrations of the app.
He was happy to hear this. He said for contact tracing to be effective, people needed to know where they had been.
Bloomfield said the app was "an adjunct" to the contact tracing system, which will be scaled up by the end of next month to make 20,000 phone calls per day.
Bloomfield said downloading the app would mean the Health Ministry would have up-to-date contact details, which would greatly help tracing efforts.
Yesterday, an update to the testing criteria was announced to better define who should be tested. It was expected to get the number processed daily to about 4000.
