New Zealand has two new confirmed cases of Covid-19, the Ministry of Health confirmed today, one needing emergency treatment prior to being diagnosed.
Both cases are people who have recently returned from overseas and are in managed isolation facilities, and the Ministry of Health says there are no cases in the community.
There are now 16 active Covid-19 cases in New Zealand, all in managed isolation or quarantine.
Both of today's cases had arrived from India and were staying in managed isolation at Auckland's Grand Millennium Hotel.
The first case is a man in his 20s, who arrived on June 22, while the second case is a woman in her 20s who arrived on June 18.
Yesterday, the woman was taken by ambulance to the Auckland Hospital emergency department for a different medical issue, the Ministry of Health says.
She was treated in a separate room while in the emergency department and wore a surgical mask throughout her time in hospital, and staff were wearing PPE.
The Ministry of Health says she was there for a “short period” before returning to the hotel.
She had tested negative for the virus during routine testing on Tuesday, before testing as positive as part of her assessment at the hospital yesterday.
Members of staff were aware she had returned from overseas and appropriate protocols were followed, including the use of PPE, the Ministry of Health says.
“Members of the public can be assured that Auckland City Hospital is safe for patients, visitors and staff,” the Ministry of Health says.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says the woman’s initial negative test result wasn't unexpected as she may have been in the early stages of the virus.
“What this case highlights is the importance of 14 days spent in managed isolation or quarantine together with daily symptom checks,” he says.
“Even with all returnees being tested twice during their stay in managed isolation, we continue to do a daily check for symptoms.”
Yesterday, 9178 tests were carried out, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 387,435.
The Ministry of Health says of the 2159 people who left managed isolation facilities between June 9 and 16, 1228 people have been contacted and tested negative for Covid-19 so far.
Of those people, 800 were tested before leaving the facilities and 428 were tested after they'd left.
The Ministry of Health is still awaiting test results for 367 people, and has "repeatedly" tried to contact 427 people.
It says it'll refer those people to "finding services", with 92 of these people having invalid phone numbers.
Seventy-nine people have refused a test, and another 64 people won't be tested for various reasons. These reasons include age, the person being overseas or the person being part of repositioning crew, such as airline crew who aren't currently working.
New Zealand now has a total of 1520 confirmed and probable Covid-19 cases. The death toll remains at 22.
Meanwhile, the NZ COVID Tracer app has recorded 582,000 registrations, and businesses have created 75,285 posters.
There have been 1,250,339 poster scans to date.
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