10 Nov 2020

Covid-19: One new case today in managed isolation

2:05 pm on 10 November 2020

There is one new case of Covid-19 in New Zealand today, in managed isolation.

3D illustration of coronaviruses.

Photo: AFP

In a statement, the Ministry of Health says the new case arrived from India via Singapore on 31 October. They were transferred from managed isolation at the Grand Mercure to the Auckland quarantine facility on 5 November after a family member tested positive for Covid-19.

There are no new community cases.

The ministry says there are 52 active cases and the total number of confirmed cases in New Zealand is 1631.

Yesterday there were 2960 tests completed for Covid-19, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 1,142,938.

The Ministry says while genome sequencing for Case A, a quarantine worker at Auckland's Jet Park facility, shows a direct link to two returnees at the facility, the nature of the contact between Case A and the returnees is still being investigated.

"In addition, a wide review of CCTV footage is being conducted to determine the exposure event for Case A's infection."

The remaining close contact of Case A has returned a negative test result, it says.

Of Case B's (a Defence Force worker) 55 identified close contacts, 48 have returned a negative result, and the rest are pending."

There are now 2,347,700 registered users of the NZ Covid Tracer app.

Poster scans have reached 110,851,967 and there have been 4,579,834 manual diary entries created.

Meanwhile, the government has welcomed news of international progress in a Covid-19 vaccine as encouraging and says if all goes according to plan some doses could be delivered to New Zealand early next year.

Drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech announced their coronavirus vaccine can prevent more than 90 percent of people from getting Covid-19, according to a preliminary analysis.

Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods said New Zealand has signed a deal to buy 1.5 million vaccines, enough for 750,000 people, subject to it passing all clinical trials and being approved by Medsafe.

Woods said Medsafe would assess any vaccines as quickly as possible after being provided data from Pfizer.

Yesterday, the ministry said there were four new cases in New Zealand, all in managed isolation facilities, and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield gave further details of the November quarantine cluster.