Covid 19 coronavirus: Remaining Americold employee tests return negative

Three outstanding Covid-19 tests of Americold workers in Auckland have come back negative, limiting the number of confirmed cases at the Mt Wellington site to 10.

Seven of the confirmed cases are employees, whereas the remaining three are contractors, Americold NZ managing director Richard Winnall said.

"We're expecting no further test results at this site, so we believe that's the full extent we'll hear from that site," he told the Herald.

It comes after director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announced this afternoon there are nine new cases of Covid-19 in the community.

Seven of them are linked to the cluster and four are still under investigation, including two of the new cases announced today.

All of the cases still under investigation are believed to be linked to the Auckland cluster of which there are 58 active cases currently.

The Mt Wellington facility remains closed after an employee tested positive for Covid-19. Photo / Greg Bowker

The first case of community transmission in New Zealand for over 100 days started at the Americold cool-store facility in Mt Wellington.

It forced Auckland into an alert level 3 lockdown and the rest of New Zealand to alert level 2.

Winnall said the past few days had been uncomfortable for a lot of Americold staff.

"While we still had people waiting for results, I think that was a very anxious time for them and uncomfortable," he said.

"We really felt for them. Now that the results are in, everyone knows one way or the other.

"It's not an easy time for everyone, but I think they're doing as well as they can be under the circumstances."

Americold is staying in contact with its employees, especially those who have the virus to make sure they're getting the support they need, Winnall said.

The Mt Wellington facility will remain closed until the results of surface testing are complete, which Winnall hoped would arrive mid-week.

"I think [Dr Bloomfield] was expecting results and the interpretation of those results by around mid-this week," he said.

"We'll continue to work with them depending on what they find. If they find anything and how we interpret them."

Elsewhere, a theory the case was linked to shipping freight between Melbourne and New Zealand is not plausible, Winnall said earlier.

On Saturday, the Herald reported the company had investigated whether there was a transfer of product between facilities and there was not.

"We can completely rule out transmission through that speculation on freight," Winnall said.

"It's just not possible because there is no freight or supply chain connecting those two properties [Mt Wellington and Melbourne]."