Watch: Two new Covid cases at isolation centres - Ashley Bloomfield

Political reporter·NZ Herald·

29 Jun, 2020 12:33 AM4 mins to read

NOW PLAYING • Focus Live: Two new Covid-19 cases at isolation centres

There are two new cases of Covid-19 both recently returned from overseas. Both cases are in managed facilities since they arrived in the country. There are now 22 active cases in New Zealand. ...

There are two new cases of Covid-19 - both recently returned from overseas.

Both cases have been in managed facilities since they arrived in the country. There are now 22 active cases in New Zealand.

Yesterday there were four new cases reported in border facilities, with one person in hospital.

The first case is a man in his 50s who arrived from India on June 24.

The second case is a woman in her 20s from the United States, who arrived here on June 18. She is the partner of a person who has already tested positive with the disease.

One person remains in a stable condition at Auckland City Hospital. There have now been 1078 cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand.

Of those in managed facilities who left without testing, 1069 people have been contacted and tested negative.

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There are still 367 people the Ministry of Health is having trouble getting in touch with. Director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield made a fresh appeal for these people to get in touch with authorities.

Bloomfield said there was an obligation for them to make contact with Healthline. "We just need to remind everybody, everyone has a role to play. They need to do their part."

But Bloomfield said given the lack of community transmission in recent weeks these people appeared to present a very low risk of spreading disease.

Bloomfield revealed more than 50 of the returned travellers who could not be contacted by health authorities did not have phone numbers that worked.

Review of isolation centres

He said a team was on the ground in Auckland last week making a full in-depth review of the healthcare aspects of managed isolation.

He was awaiting the results of this latest review.

Standard surgical masks were now available for those in managed isolation. Those swabbing were expected to wear full personal protective gear.

Given many of those had tested positive on day three of managed isolation, Bloomfield suggested people were being infected in their country of origin.

Since June 16, health authorities had caught up on a backlog in testing new arrivals in managed facilities on both day three and 12.

Compassionate exemptions remained an active discussion with the ministry looking to see what needed to be in place before restarting the special leave. "It's a work in progress and I don't have an indication," says Bloomfield, who also acknowledged he had received flowers following a public appeal.

Face masks

All passengers heading to managed isolation should now be wearing face masks after leaving their aircraft, Bloomfield said.

He was confident about the isolation process surrounding airline staff flying into New Zealand from overseas. Those who were on US routes, a troubling Covid hotspot, were requested to undertake two days of self-isolation before they resumed work.

A Ministry of Health staff member had recently flown to the US to check on health protocols.

Bloomfield said at this point widespread use of masks in the community was not necessary.

"There is no doubt that mass masking may play a role if we get community transmission again."

Though it was a potentially important tool in breaking community transmission, because we didn't have community transmission at the moment there was no need for this action.

"There are other more important things we should be doing at the moment but they're definitely not off the table," said Bloomfield.

Bloomfield said yesterday: "While news that one of our recent cases is in hospital may be concerning to some, it is something the health system in New Zealand has remained prepared for.

"I want to reassure the wider community that this person is receiving good treatment from the team at Auckland City Hospital, who have previous experience of managing positive cases."

The other case was a woman in her 30s from India who had been isolating separately from her husband - who earlier tested positive - but was considered a close contact.

Another was a man in his 30s from Nepal who was isolating with three other family members. They were all tested - two were negative and a third was pending. All are being considered close contacts.

And the fourth was a man in his 30s who tested positive as part of the routine day three testing.