A man who shared a room with three others in a surgical ward at Middlemore Hospital and subsequently tested positive for Covid-19 has been linked to the outbreak.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said on Sunday the man had been "clearly" and "very convincingly" linked to the wider outbreak.
"We know where the point of transmission occurred."
Nine members of the man's household went on to test positive for the virus.
He had been admitted with abdominal pains on September 4 and said he had not been exposed to the virus at screening.
He was tested for the virus the following day.
The man is not the only person to test positive for the Covid-19 after they had gone to the hospital for unrelated conditions.
On Thursday, another patient who went to the hospital’s emergency department tested positive for the virus after her visit.
Late Saturday night, the Ministry of Health revealed three more people , including a baby, also tested positive for the virus after going to the hospital.
Bloomfied also revealed Thursday's Middlemore case had been linked back to the Māngere church cluster through genomic sequencing.
However, the person-to-person link was not known for the woman at this stage.
He said further information was being collected about the woman who went to the birthing centre for a routine antenatal appointment and tested positive.
Any information on whether or not she was linked to the wider outbreak was likely to come in the next couple of days.
He was adamant she would not have contracted the virus at the hospital.
Bloomfield said no staff or patients exposed to these cases had tested positive to date.
He did say another person had presented to the hospital in the last 24 hours and is now in ICU.
Like Counties Manukau Health's chief medical officer, Bloomfield had the following message: "Our hospitals are safe ."
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