There are no new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today, and five cases in managed isolation facilities.
Today's update was given via a written statement, as there is no press conference scheduled.
Today's list did include an Air New Zealand employee who tested positive late yesterday after returning to New Zealand from Japan at the end of last month.
The worker had been in the community after the flight but authorities have said they don't think the person is part of the Auckland cluster.
The positive case has been transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility while their household contacts, who tested negative, remain self-isolating from home.
Results for the genome sequencing of the airline worker are expected late tomorrow afternoon, according to the Ministry of Health.
While that case was confirmed by the Ministry of Health last last night, the airline staffer is included in today's tally.
The employee initially tested negative after arriving back in the country but tested positive over the weekend as part of routine surveillance testing.
According to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the air crew member had only recently received a vaccination for the virus before becoming infected.
According to the Ministry of Health, the most likely source of infection is contact overseas and the virus was therefore likely to have been incubating or have been infectious before the worker was vaccinated.
The vaccine requires two doses to be administered over a longer period, and is likely to take at least two weeks before the person vaccinated is protected.
The Ministry of Health says the airline crew member could not have caught the virus from the vaccine "as it does not contain any live, dead or deactivated virus".
The vaccine can't cause people who have been vaccinated to test positive for Covid-19.
There are currently 78 active cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, four of which are in the community.
It's been just over a week since the last reported case of community transmission on 28 February, according to the Ministry of Health.
LOCATIONS OF INTEREST
Due to Auckland having been in Alert Level 3 during the period when the airline worker was infectious, the public health risk is deemed low.
Interviews are ongoing with the case to determine what places they have visited, but at this stage there’s only one location of interest.
People who visited Countdown Auckland Airport between 12.07pm and 1.22pm last Wednesday are treated as casual contacts of the case.
For those who are casual contacts, they’re asked to monitor their health until 17 March, and if they develop any symptoms to call Healthline and get tested.
An Auckland golf course which was visited by a member of the airline worker’s household is not considered a location of interest as that person returned a negative test.
From the Auckland February cluster only one close contact who visited the City Fitness Gym remains outstanding, with health officials and police working to locate them.
Nearly 6000 people were required to get tested and self-isolate during the outbreak.
There are seven community testing stations in Auckland available today, in Wiri, Otara, Pakuranga Heights, Balmoral, New Lynn, Henderson and Northcote.
BORDER CASES
Three of today’s positive cases at the border arrived from India via United Arab Emirates on March 6. They all tested positive on arrival and are quarantined in Auckland.
The other two cases travelled together from Brazil via Qatar and tested positive on arrival on 6 March. They also are quarantined in Auckland.
TESTING AND CONTACT TRACING
Since the start of this year, there have been 37 historical cases of Covid-19 reported.
Yesterday, 3962 tests were conducted, bringing the seven-day rolling average to 10,164 tests.
The total number of tests processed to date is 1.7 million.
The NZ Covid Tracer app now has 2.7 million registered users with 211 million poster scans and 8.2 million manual entries.
In the last 24 hours, there have been 1.4 million QR code scans recorded.



















SHARE ME