10 Sep 2021

Covid-19 update: 11 new community cases reported in NZ today

1:56 pm on 10 September 2021

New daily Covid-19 community case numbers have dropped to 11 today.

Coronavirus particles, illustration. Different strains of coronavirus are responsible for diseases such as the common cold, gastroenteritis and SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome). The new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (previously 2019-CoV) emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.

Photo: NOBEASTSOFIERCE/Science Photo Library via AFP

There were also six new cases in managed isolation and two historical cases reported today.

There are now 879 total cases, with 288 cases having now recovered. There are 29 unlinked cases, including six from today.

Only one case yesterday was infectious while in the community.

Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the two Middlemore Hospital cases were being investigated very thoroughly, along with a few other unlinked cases.

Yesterday case numbers dropped again to 13, all in Auckland.

There are 27 people in hospital, four are in ICU and all are requiring ventilators.

There were 14181 swabs processed yesterday.

Dr Bloomfield said it was critical this weekend there are high testing numbers, particularly in Auckland. Work is underway to set up testing sites closer to the Auckland boundary, for people who are required to be tested crossing the boundary.

Bloomfield said they are continuing to make saliva testing more widely available including for people crossing the border.

More than 38,000 people are in the contact tracing system and about 92 percent of all contacts have a test in the system, Bloomfield said.