22 Aug 2020

Covid-19: Six new cases in the community in New Zealand today

1:34 pm on 22 August 2020

There are six new cases of Covid-19 in the community, the Health Ministry has revealed.

View of a Coronavirus Covid-19 background - 3d rendering

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There are nine people with Covid-19 in hospital, including three in intensive care. There are two cases in Auckland City Hospital, four people in Middlemore - which includes the three in ICU - two people in North Shore Hospital and one person in Waikato Hospital.

There was no media conference today.

In a statement, the Health Ministry said all those in hospital were isolated and managed separately from other patients.

"The public can be confident that our DHBs are managing this effectively, as they did in the first outbreak of Covid-19 in New Zealand.

"We have heard reports of people who are reluctant to get an ambulance or go to hospital - hospitals continue to be safe places to receive medical care, and people should feel confident going to hospital to receive treatment."

The ministry said four of the new cases are epidemiologically linked to the Auckland cluster - two are household contacts and two are church contacts, while the other two cases remain under investigation.

It said 145 people linked to the cluster have been moved into the Auckland quarantine facility, which includes 75 people who have tested positive for the coronavirus.

The ministry has identified 2060 close contacts, and has contacted 2004 of them, who are now self-isolating.

The total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand is now 1321. There are a total of 111 active cases in this country, including 16 imported cases from managed isolation facilities.

There were 12,256 tests processed yesterday, with 685,476 tests carried out in total in New Zealand.

See all RNZ coverage of Covid-19

There were nine new cases of Covid-19 in the community in New Zealand and two in the country's managed isolation and quarantine facilities yesterday.

  • If you have symptoms of the coronavirus, call the NZ Covid-19 Healthline on 0800 358 5453 (+64 9 358 5453 for international SIMs) or call your GP - don't show up at a medical centre

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