Papatoetoe High School principal Vaughan Couillault says he's pleased by the community's strong turn-out for Covid-19 testing after a student tested positive for the virus.
A year 9 student at the South Auckland school is one of the three community cases confirmed over the weekend.
As a result, the school has been closed and turned into a pop-up testing station, with all students, teachers and visitors asked to isolate and get tested urgently.
Today the Ministry of Health announced 4141 community tests were processed yesterday, all with negative results.
"That's super encouraging. That's just what everyone was wanting to hear," Couillault told 1 NEWS today.
"The quicker we can get out of this Alert Level 3 lockdown and back to business as usual, the better it is for everybody."
He's particularly pleased with his community's testing turn-out, despite some people queuing for up to six hours before getting swabbed.
"They're just a cool bunch of humans. Even though the wait was quite long and really inconvenient for so many people, they queued and they did so with grace and dignity."
While the whole school has been asked to be tested, only around 33 people have been classified as close contacts by the Ministry of Health.
"When disadvantage descends on a community it doesn’t do so evenly, the fact that we’ve been able to dodge that disadvantage and no one else has got this virus so far is fantastic," Couillault says.
He told Breakfast the daughter had experienced the onset of symptoms before her mother, who works at an airport laundry and catering service. (Source: Other)
Auckland remains in a Level 3 lockdown until 11.59pm tomorrow, with the rest of the country at Level 2 until that time.
If health authorities aren't convinced the outbreak has been contained, the lockdown could be extended.
The alert levels are due to be reviewed by Cabinet tomorrow.
SHARE ME