Thursday 4 March

There are no new COVID-19 cases to report in the community.

There are 6 new COVID-19 cases to report in managed isolation.

Testing update
On Wednesday, 14,671 tests were processed. More than 68,000 tests have been processed in the last week, with a seven-day rolling average up to yesterday of 9,721 tests processed.

The total number of tests processed by laboratories to date is 1,751,605.

There are 11 community testing centres open in Auckland today; seven of these are in South and East Auckland. The centres are in Takanini, Wiri, Mangere, Otara, Pakuranga, Balmoral, New Lynn, Henderson, Northcote, with pop-up testing centres at Kohuora Park in Papatoetoe and Barry Curtis Park in Flat Bush.

There will also be a pop-up testing station at Ngâ Whare Waatea Marae in Mangere tomorrow. The Auckland DHBs are working with Turuki Healthcare there.

Community testing centres are reporting steady demand. GP and urgent care clinics are also available to carry out COVID-19 tests. COVID-19 tests are free wherever you go.

For up-to-date information on testing locations in Auckland visit www.arphs.health.nz/covid19test, for all testing locations nationwide visitwww.healthpoint.co.nz/covid-19/.

Remember the most important thing people in Auckland should be doing at Alert Level 3 is staying home. Please don’t get a test if you are well, or if you weren’t at one of the locations of interest at the stated times unless you have been advised to by public health teams.

As always, anywhere you are in the country, if you have symptoms please stay home and call Healthline (0800 358 5453) for advice.

Auckland February cases contact tracing update
We thank all those affected by the latest cases of COVID-19 in our community for their ongoing cooperation with our isolation and testing requirements.

The dates and times of potential exposure events are on the locations of interest page on the Ministry’s website. This page also has public health advice for contacts.

Our contact tracing teams are working hard to follow up with all close contacts as quickly as possible, and are in daily contact with people isolating. All casual contacts should be limiting their movements and interactions with other people. Under Alert Level 3, everyone in Auckland should also currently be staying at home.

Since Monday 1st March, 45 home visits have been undertaken by welfare providers in Auckland in partnership with the local public health service.

For the period between 14 February and 28 February, 88 percent of close contacts of a positive COVID-19 case were contacted within 48 hours from the moment when the Public Health Unit was notified of the case.

Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) Manukau

All close contacts for the Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) Manukau campus have returned a negative test and are receiving ongoing follow up from public health staff, while they complete their 14 day isolation period.

The vast majority of people on the campus at the same times as Case M are considered casual contacts and need to watch for symptoms. They do not need to have a test unless they have symptoms, or are a close or casual plus contact.

All 44 Casual Plus Contacts from MIT on the 22nd and 25th February have been successfully contacted. 42 have returned negative day 5 tests, two people without a test result are being followed up further.

City Fitness in Hunters Plaza
The 185 attendees of City Fitness in Hunters Plaza on February 26 are casual plus contacts, of which 156 have returned a negative test. There are 29 people who are due for test and we are following up these test results.

KFC Botany Downs contacts
KFC staff - there are 12 close plus contacts who worked at the same time as Case L. All 12 of these people have returned negative test results.

All other test results received so far have come back negative.

Progress with tests at Papatoetoe High School

Of 11 Papatoetoe High School students still to be retested, eight of those were visited yesterday. They are from six separate households and mobile testing vans are taking tests from them today.

Two of the remaining students have refused a test and are being managed by Auckland public health officials. Contact tracers are working actively to contact the one outstanding student, who returned an initial negative test between the 15th and 19th of February.

Kmart Botany contacts
A total of 33 staff members have been identified as close plus contacts. All 33 people have tested negative.

We have been contacted by 1,882 people who reported being at the store at the times of interest. They have been provided with public health advice. We currently have 1,839 negative test results for this group.

There are 43 people that self-identified through the Kmart exposure event remaining that have not yet been tested. 42 of these have been contacted, are complying with isolation requirements and are being actively supported to have a test.

New border case details
There are six new COVID-19 cases to report in managed isolation. 

*These people arrived on the same flight and are part of the same travel bubble.

No previously reported cases have recovered. The total number of active cases in New Zealand is 68. Our total number of confirmed cases is 2,033.

Historical cases
Since January 1, there have now been 37 historical cases, out of a total of 223 cases.

One previously reported historical case has been reclassified as Not a Case as they have been reported and counted as a case in another country.

NZ COVID Tracer
NZ COVID Tracer now has 2,726,794 registered users.

Poster scans have reached 205,443,184 and users have created 8,153,612 manual diary entries.

There have been 1,566,316 scans in the 24 hours to 1pm yesterday, and 1,400,527 scans per day on average for the past week.

It’s critical to keep track of where you’ve been and the COVID Tracer app is an easy way to do this. Please continue to scan QR codes wherever you go and turn on Bluetooth tracing in the app dashboard if you haven’t already done so.