New Zealand / Covid 19

Covid-19: No cases in community, four in MIQ - Ministry

14:20 pm on 29 June 2021

The Ministry of Health is reporting no new cases in the community and four in managed isolation and quarantine facilities.

Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas

The number of active cases in New Zealand is 30, with one case having recovered. Total confirmed cases are at 2385.

The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border is three. Since 1 January 2021, there have been 76 historical cases, out of a total of 569 cases.

So far, 2608 people have been identified as contacts of the Australian person who visited Wellington between 19 and 21 June, the ministry said.

Of those, 2416 or 93 percent of people had returned a negative result, nine additional people have had a swab and are awaiting a result; 11 people have been granted a clinical exemption and 8 have returned overseas, which means their home jurisdiction will be following up with them.

The ministry also asked people in the greater Wellington region to continue to check the list of locations of interest visited by the Australian traveller to the city.

The numbers came as Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed the Wellington region would move back down to alert level 1 at midnight tonight.

Meanwhile, the pause on travel with all of Australia would be extended until at least midnight on Sunday 4 July for Victoria, South Australia, ACT and Tasmania. Travel would remain paused beyond that time for New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, with a decision set to be announced on Tuesday 6 July.

On the two contacts from the miner in Australia, Bloomfield said both of those tests had come back negative.

He says New Zealand would not be seeing bigger numbers of vaccines arriving until the middle of July. With some pensioners frustrated over access to vaccination information, Hipkins said everyone in group 3 would be contacted by the end of July.

"They are certainly not missing out."

DHBs were making decisions about group 3 and how to approach vaccinations, Hipkins said.

He said a delivery of vaccines was made today, and another delivery was expected for next Tuesday.

"If deliveries are late, that will cause another headache for us."

He says he did not want vaccines sitting in the freezers, and would rather they go into people but it did mean "we're cutting it really fine".

It would be pretty tight over the next seven days, he said, and might get down to zero by next Tuesday.

Hipkins says the mandatory requirement for people to get vaccinated would also be extended to a bigger group of workers, and that was being worked on.

On Saturday, alert level 2 for the Wellington region was extended and quarantine-free travel with all of Australia was put on hold after several outbreaks in various states.

The alert level was raised after an Australian tourist who had visited tourist attractions, restaurants and bars in Wellington between 18 June and 21 June tested positive for the Delta variant of the virus on returning home.

The man's partner who also visited Wellington has also tested positive which means that test results from locations the couple visited towards the end of their stay are critical.

Despite the risk, no community cases have reported in New Zealand since and thousands have been tested.

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Yesterday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Cabinet had commissioned advice on making QR code scanning mandatory at some high-risk locations, and mandating mask use under level 2 as well as high-risk places.

She also said the government would be considering whether pre-departure testing would be required for travellers from certain Australian states once the bubble resumes.

Those who have been at a location of interest at the relevant time should immediately isolate at their home or accommodation and call Healthline on 0800 358 5453 for advice on testing.