Dr. Ashley Bloomfield gives a Covid-19 update following scares in Auckland, Wellington and the Waikato.
There are four new cases of Covid-19 to report today, all imported cases in managed isolation facilities and no more community cases.
But a person who was a casual contact of a positive case on a flight from Auckland to Wellington has started feeling unwell and is awaiting tests results later today.
That person was recently in the Waikato region, which has put some schools and businesses on high alert.
Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield said there is no need at this stage to change alert levels.
But he is immediately looking to improve infection prevention measures for workers who interact with quarantined cases.
That includes whether they should all wear N95 masks, and be prevented from having face-to-face meetings with workers who don't interact with active cases.
He said the Health Ministry was immediately looking into advice on N95 masks, adding that they were better at preventing transmission than the surgical masks that health staff currently use.
He also pushed for people to wear masks on flights and public transport, even though the Government decided against making it mandatory at level 1.
The latest community cases - known as the November quarantine cluster - stem from a Defence Force serviceperson working at the Jet Park facility in Auckland, who tested positive on Friday.
Genome sequencing makes it clear that they caught Covid-19 from quarantined cases at the Jet Park, but how it was transmitted is still being investigated.
They shared accommodation with 242 people, 239 of whom have tested negative while three other results are pending.
They also have 25 identified close contacts, 23 of whom have tested negative while one result is pending and one has tested positive.
That case, a Defence Force civilian worker, is believed to have caught Covid-19 after a meeting with the Jet Park worker in Auckland on Wednesday.
The civilian worker flew to Wellington on Thursday on Air NZ flight NZ 457, sitting in row 23. He did not wear a mask on his flight.
He developed symptoms on Friday night and he was tested on Saturday, with a positive result coming back on Sunday.
Of the nine close contacts who sat within two seats of the worker on the plane, seven have tested negative while two are awaiting results.
One person who wasn't sitting close to the worker has developed Covid-19 symptoms and is expecting test results later today, Bloomfield said.
That person attended a recent meeting in Kawhia, along with members of the Otorohanga College community. Anyone at that meeting should be vigilant about their health and to seek a test if they feel unwell, he said.
"But no further action than that is required at this stage. The risk for Otorohanga College and the meeting in Kawhia is considered to be very low."
Wellington case "well contained"
The civilian worker has had 55 close contacts identified, 32 of whom have tested negative.
He also has three household contacts who have all returned a negative test result, including two students who attend two different schools: Boulcott Primary and Hutt Intermediate, in Lower Hutt.
Bloomfield said the students will isolate for 14 days, and have not been at school since Friday.
"Students at these schools are at very low risk," Bloomfield said.
"Parents, caregivers and staff will be receiving a letter around this. As advised in the letter, other students and staff will not need to be tested unless they have symptoms of Covid-19, and as per routine guidance they do not need to self-isolate.
There are 51 active cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand. There were 3042 tests conducted yesterday.
Not border failures - Bloomfield
This morning Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the number of times Covid-19 had crossed from an MIQ facility into the community was not a sign that the system was broken.
There have been at least seven instances in just over three months: the Jet Park nurse, the Rydges maintenance worker, the port engineer, each of the two Sudima nurses who interacted with the infected foreign mariners, the overseas arrival who is thought to have been infected from a shared rubbish bin lid, and the Jet Park Defence Force worker.
The Auckland August cluster is also thought to have probably come from an MIQ facility, but there is no evidence of this.
Bloomfield said the port engineer appeared to become infected after interacting with a member of the crew who had arrived from the Philippines.
He said there was no obvious sign of how the Sudima nurses became infected at this stage.
And the Defence Force worker might have caught it while interacting with active cases, such as escorting them to exercise areas or for smoking breaks.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says Covid-19 is a tricky virus and infection prevention controls are looked at every time there is a new case at the border. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Epidemiologists and public health experts have called these failures of infection prevention controls, but Bloomfield and Ardern reject this.
"Ultimately we've had 70,000 people going through but more of them are coming back with Covid at the moment, so that heightens the risk," Ardern told Newstalk ZB.
She said the Sudima nurses had both been wearing personal protective equipment.
"It's a virus, though, and it's extraordinarily tricky."
Bloomfield declined to say whether it was irresponsible for Otorohanga College to wrongly say in a Facebook post that a Covid-positive person had flown from Wellington to Hamilton and may have had contact with college whanau.
The Waikato DHB said shortly afterwards that the flight was actually from Auckland to Wellington on November 5 - the same flight taken by the Defence Force civilian worker.
Yesterday push notifications for locations of interest were sent out to about 50 users of the Covid Tracer app, Bloomfield said.
The locations where the Defence Force workers had been include:
• Avis Car Rental, Auckland Airport, November 5, 5 - 5:15pm • Domestic Terminal, Auckland Airport, November 5, 5:30 - 7:45pm • Orleans Chicken & Waffles, Auckland Airport, November 5, 5:30 - 7pm • The Gypsy Moth, Auckland Airport, November 5, 7 - 7:15pm • Hudsons, Auckland Airport, November5, 7 - 7:15pm • Little Penang, 44 The Terrace, Wellington, November 6, 1:15 - 3:45pm • Mezze Bar, Unit 1A, Soho Mall, Auckland CBD, November 5, 11am – 1pm • Liquor.Com, 456 Queen Street, Auckland CBD, November 5, 1pm – 2pm
People at these locations at these times are considered casual contacts and should contact Healthline on 0800 358 5453 if they have symptoms or if they have any health concerns.
Masks
Bloomfield said he wanted people to use a mask on public transport and on flights at alert level 1. Asked if he thinks it should be mandatory, he said there was a case for that.
He said infection prevention controls would be reviewed at all MIQ facilities, especially at the Sudima where two nurses were infected after interacting with infected foreign mariners.
The ministry was immediately looking at the use of N95 masks for workers who interact with positive cases in MIQ, especially given that there was "no obvious close contact or lengthy contact" with cases in the last three border-facing workers who tested positive.
The ministry was also looking at whether quarantine staff should attend face-to-face meetings during their period of working at the facilities.
Movements of MIQ Defence Force staff were "already limited", Bloomfield said, and they didn't tend to go out a lot because the facilities were staffed 24/7 and they were posted to the facilities for months at a time.
The criteria for a transtasman bubble was being looked at again, Bloomfield said. At the moment there needs to be 28 days of no community transmission where the source is unknown, which he said was a high bar.
