New Zealand / Covid 19

Covid-19 update: 65 new community cases in NZ today

13:25 pm on 15 October 2021

There are 65 new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today.

Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi

There was no media conference today. In a statement, the ministry said 34 of these cases are linked, 10 are household contacts, and 31 remain unlinked with investigations continuing. There have been 107 unlinked cases in the past 14 days.

There was also one new case in managed isolation.

There were 71 new cases in the community yesterday.

Thirty-four people are in hospital, with six in intensive care.

There have now been 1855 cases in the current community outbreak and 4538 since the pandemic began.

The ministry said 68,003 vaccine doses were given yesterday, including 15,121 first doses and 52,882 second doses.

No new cases were reported in Waikato today, although the ministry said there were still two cases that were not linked to other cases.

Earlier today, the ministry said a second test for Covid-19 in Te Awamutu's wastewater returned a positive result.

The sample was taken on Wednesday, after detection of Covid-19 in wastewater on Tuesday.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield told Morning Report those who contracted Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated were likely to require shorter periods in isolation.

Vaccinated people appeared to be infectious for a shorter period of time, he said.