There are 62 new cases of Covid-19 in the community today, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has confirmed.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
In this afternoon's press conference, Dr Bloomfield says one of the new community cases is in Wellington.
There is also one new case in managed isolation.
There are 12 people in hospital with the virus, Bloomfield says, an increase of three, with 11 of those associated with the outbreak. None of those associated with the outbreak are in ICU.
He says the majority of links between cases are in households or workplaces, and there are some cases that have been at a location of interest.
Bloomfield offers a shout out to the Pacific community in Auckland and community leaders for stepping up their testing and vaccinations. He says it is Pacific communities that have had the highest testing rates in the outbreak.
The two biggest sub-clusters are the Samoan Assembly of God Church in south Auckland's Māngere and the Birkdale Social Network cluster associated with case A. He says there is a 14-case cluster associated with Massey households and workplaces, and the rest have less than 10 cases so he will not go into further detail.
There are six sub-clusters in total.
Bloomfield says about 40 new locations of interest have been released today, which he says is a much smaller number than previous days.
He says as a matter of public interest the ministry is now publishing case data including gender, ethnicity and age group breakdowns. That will be updated daily.
As of 9am there were 20,383 contacts formally identified. More than 12,717 of those have been formally contacted, and 62 percent have returned a test result.
He says in the next few days there will be over 1200 contact tracers in call centres around the country.
There are 22 community testing centres across Auckland including a new one at Mountford Park in Manurewa, he says.
There was a further detection of Covid-19 in wastewater in Warkworth from a couple of days ago, he says, so further testing is being done there.
Wastewater from more than 70 locations covering more than 3.6 million people have been tested, he says, and apart from in Auckland, Warkworth and Wellington there have been no other positive results.
He says racist remarks directed at the Samoan community is "disappointing and frankly gutless. I'm asking everyone in the country to be kind. The virus is the problem, not people, people are the solution. Be part of the solution."
He says the Pacific community has been incredibly responsive and thanks community leaders for their efforts.
Bloomfield says a day 6 test is being introduced in managed isolation, in the first instance when a case on the same floor in the area has tested positive on day 0 or day 3.
Regarding RNZ's report that saline may have been given to some people instead of a vaccine in Auckland, Bloomfield says it occurred on 12 July.
He says it's only a possibility and was discovered after an extra vial was found at the end of the day.
Bloomfield says changes have been made, to do more frequent checking of vials. He says labels are now put on syringes everywhere they are administered in New Zealand in large sites.
At the time there was no booster shots, he says. Most of the people who attended the vaccination centre that day would have received a dose - indeed it is not clear anyone has missed out a dose. There was also a similar incident in Queensland.
Everyone who was involved in the incident will receive a letter in the next 48 hours, he says, and the government is awaiting advice on whether those people will receive another dose or not.
There were 41 new cases of Covid-19 in the community yesterday.
Yesterday, Dr Bloomfield said the largest of the six clusters of cases in Auckland and Wellington was associated with the Assembly Of God Church in Māngere.