There are three new cases of Covid-19 in managed isolation, and no new community cases.
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They include a person who arrived from UAE on 18 February and was tested on day 5 as a contact of a positive case; a person who arrived from Papua New Guinea via Australia on 20 February and was tested on day 3; and a non-infectious historical case who arrived from Mexico via USA and was tested on day 12 of their stay.
Total active cases is at 65, with total confirmed cases at 2012.
Some 9269 tests were processed yesterday, with more than 53,000 tests across the Northern region since Sunday 14 February.
Papatoetoe High School
The ministry said all remaining students and staff at Papatoetoe High School, a total of 1525 people, had now been designated as Casual Plus contacts of Case A, apart from 31 close contacts who had all tested negative execpt one (Case D).
Papatoetoe High School said more than 1000 students had been retested for the virus since Tuesday afternoon.
The school is at the centre of Auckand's Covid-19 cluster.
Its principal Vaughan Couillault is waiting for any early results, and the number of students yet to get retested.
But he said the Ministry of Health was yet to ask for any help to track students down.
The ministry's update this afternoon said 1490 had returned at least one negative test, and three (cases E, I and J) had returned positive tests. All would be asked to return a further test on or after 22 February.
"We continue to work closely with the school to ensure all those in the school community who need to be tested are. Where necessary, this includes visits to students homes to make sure people are getting the support they need to access testing and remain isolated," the Ministry said.
Testing is available at the school again today until 3pm.
About 1100 students came to a testing site at the school and more went to community testing centres.
Kmart contacts
Today, staff at Kmart Botany are asked to get a 'day five' Covid-19 swab.
In its update today, the Ministry said 15 staff members have been identified as "close plus" contacts, who should do the same as a close contact and also keep their household members in isolation until they returned a negative day-five test.
"The classification of close plus contact helps provide flexibility in terms of the public health response to public exposure events as well as helping standardise the approach for health services," the ministry said.
It said the "close plus" contact classification was an "existing approach" used where the risk of transmission is higher.
All 15 close plus contacts from the Kmart had been contacted and were self isolating, the ministry said.
Another 1236 people who reported being in the store around the same time as the positive case had been provided with public health advice and asked to isolate for 14 days and be tested on day five and day 12 after potential exposure.
"We encourage anyone who has visited the store at the times of interest to contact Healthline. We expect this number to increase."
Home viewing
A family of positive cases identified - cases I, J and K - hosted a private home viewing on 20 February, the ministry said.
The viewing lasted half an hour and was attended by three people, plus an agent. All were awaiting test results, the ministry said, and the home was not regarded as a location of interest because all attendees had already been identified.