Today there are two cases of COVID-19 in managed isolation to report in New Zealand.

Of today’s cases, both are imported cases detected in a managed isolation facility.  One person arrived on a flight from Germany on 21 September via the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia.  

The other person who tested positive arrived in New Zealand on a flight from the Philippines via Taiwan on 23 September.   Both individuals tested positive as a result of tests done around day three and have now both been transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

There are no new cases in the community. 

In other updates, all passengers on the Christchurch to Auckland charter flight have been tested, except one.  

Of those tested, all results are negative including the one pending test result from yesterday which returned negative today.  

The remaining passenger is a young child. A risk assessment, including the child’s parent testing negative, has determined the child is considered low risk and no test currently required.

There are 22 people isolating in the Auckland quarantine facility from the community, which includes 10 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their household contacts. 

One person is in hospital with COVID-19 at Middlemore hospital. The patient is in isolation on a general ward. 

Since August 11, our contact tracing team has identified 4072 close contacts of cases, of which 4,069 have been contacted and are self-isolating or have completed self-isolation. We are in the process of contacting the rest. Yesterday we reported 4177 close contacts which inaccurately included 105 casual contacts. These casual contacts have now been removed from today’s close contact numbers, including one casual contact already contacted.

Our total number of active cases is 59; of those, 32 are imported cases in MIQ facilities, and 27 are community cases. 

Our total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 is 1,477. 

Yesterday our laboratories processed 5,746 tests, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 948,942.

An update on the three cases reported on 23 September

Public health services continue to contact trace, test and isolate close contacts of the three community cases reported this week.

As we have previously reported, these three people are part of the same family group – two had been in managed isolation in Christchurch and returned home on the charter flight, while the third is a household contact. 

There are now a total of 44 close contacts associated with these cases. 36 have returned negative test results and the remaining have been or are in the process of being tested. All are now self-isolating.  The only close contacts still with results pending are in Auckland.

Public health services in relevant regions where individuals may have visited while infectious have been in contact with businesses and will issue information to the public as appropriate. 

The National Contact Tracing team will continue issuing exposure notices through the COVID Tracer App where appropriate.

Anyone receiving an app notification as having visited a place of interest should be vigilant of their health and get tested if they develop symptoms.

Additional testing 

For details about weekend testing and where to get a COVID-19 test in the locations from which the travellers came, visit these links:

• in Auckland, visit Auckland Regional Public Health Service’s website
• in Bay of Plenty, visit the DHB’s website
• in Lakes, visit the DHB’s website
• in Waikato, visit the DHB’s website
• in Wellington, visit Capital & Coast DHB’s website
•  in Christchurch, visit Canterbury DHB’s website.