Today there is one new historical Covid-19 case in managed isolation and quarantine, the Ministry of Health has confirmed.
Today's new historical case is a person who arrived from the US on February 8 and tested positive when they first arrived at managed isolation in Christchurch.
A historical case means they are no longer infectious.
Since January 1, there has been 26 historical cases, out of a total of 158 coronavirus cases. These historical cases have all been previously reported.
The Ministry of Health said because if the increasing number of people becoming infected and recovering before travelling to New Zealand it would include running totals of historical cases from this week.
"Our testing may detect residual viral material on people's swabs, but it's important to reiterate they are no longer considered to be infectious," the ministry said.
"As we've previously stated, an increase in historical cases is not unexpected."
There are no new Covid-19 cases in the community today.
Meanwhile, five previously reported virus cases have now recovered and another previously reported case has been reclassified as under investigation".
This brings New Zealand's total active cases to 54. The total number of Covid-19 cases here since the pandemic began is 1968.
Yesterday, 5740 tests for the corornavirus were carried out in New Zealand, adding to a total of 1.57 million.
It comes after the Government yesterday announced it had signed off the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for use in New Zealand for those over the age of 16. The age restriction is in place for now because of the lack of clinical data on vaccine use in younger children.
"There’s ongoing interest around who is able to receive the vaccine," The Ministry of Health said today.
"Patients receiving the following therapies should get advice from their specialist before receiving the Pfizer mRNA Covid-19 vaccine. This includes those receiving pembrolizumab (Keytruda), nivolumab (Opdivo), ipilimumab (Yervoy), atezolizumab (Tecentriq).
"The Pfizer mRNA Covid-19 vaccine is also suitable for use in immunocompromised individuals."
New Zealand's Covid Tracer app now has 2.56 million registered users.
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