South Aucklanders queue for New Zealand's first mass vaccination event, which aims to get more than 15,000 people vaccinated against Covid-19 over three days. Photo / Michael Craig
South Aucklanders queue for New Zealand's first mass vaccination event, which aims to get more than 15,000 people vaccinated against Covid-19 over three days. Photo / Michael Craig
There are four new cases of Covid-19 in managed isolation today, and none in the community.
The Ministry of Health has just issued an update on Covid-19 cases in New Zealand as a mass vaccination event in south Auckland draws to a close.
Two of the four travellers came fromthe United Kingdom and one from United Arab Emirates. The origin of the fourth person has not been confirmed but they travelled via Qatar and Australia.
A historical case has also been identified, with a person who arrived on July 14 from Serbia and Montenegro testing positive on day 12 of their managed isolation stay. That person is the contact of a previously known case.
The Ministry of Health is still urging people who have travelled from Queensland to New Zealand since last Monday, July 26, to check whether they were in any of the locations of interest on the Queensland Health Website.
Parts of Queensland went into a three-day lockdown yesterday. The quarantine-free travel bubble with Australia has been suspended since July 23 but there have been managed return flights from the state since then.
Anyone who was on one of those flights since Monday and has been in a location of interest should immediately isolate and call Healthline on 0800 358 5453, the ministry said.
If returnees from Queensland had not been to a location of interest they should still remain vigilant for symptoms.
Contact tracing teams are identifying people who returned on flights from Queensland during the relevant period and contacting them by email.
It's hoped 15,500 New Zealanders will have got their first Pfizer injection at the Auckland weekend's vaccination event, run over Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Manukau.
As of last night more than 10,000 people had received their first shot at the event, with another 5600 booked in for today. The event closes at 8pm.
An update from the ministry on new Covid cases is due at 1pm.
At its last update on Friday the ministry said there were two new cases of Covid-19 in managed isolation in Auckland, with the pair arriving from Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom.
One historical case was also identified in a person who had arrived from the Philippines on July 13. They had tested positive on day 12 and the case was being investigated to ensure transmission had not happened within the MIQ facility.
There were 45 active cases in New Zealand.
The ministry is also expected to give an update on an infected United Nations staffer who was rushed to New Zealand from Fiji on Thursday night.
On Saturday the woman remained in a stable condition in a secure intensive care unit in south Auckland's Middlemore Hospital. The mercy dash to New Zealand was made at the request of the UN.
Fiji is battling an outbreak of the more transmissible Delta variant of the virus, with more than 1000 new cases and six deaths reported on Friday. Among the dead were a nurse and an 11-month-old baby. None of the six had been vaccinated.
