Covid 19 coronavirus: Marist College cluster officially closed by Ministry of Health

A teacher was the first person to test positive in the cluster. Photo / Michael Craig

There were a total of 96 confirmed Covid-19 cases linked to the Marist College cluster but now it's officially closed.

A teacher was the first person at the school to test positive and at the start of New Zealand's pandemic response, the cluster was the largest in the country before falling to second behind the Bluff wedding with 98 cases.

The announcement of the closed cluster comes on the same day it was announced it's been 24 days since there has been a new confirmed case of Covid-19 in New Zealand.

There were 96 confirmed cases connected to the Marist College cluster. Photo / Michael Craig

A cluster is only considered closed after there have been no new cases of 28 days from the date of when all cases have completed isolation.

The closing of the cluster means the ministry is confident the transmission chain has stopped and nobody else linked to that cluster will become infected.

Only five significant clusters remain open in New Zealand: The Bluff wedding, Matamata's Redoubt Bar, St Margaret's residential aged-care home in Auckland, Rosewood rest home in Christchurch, and Atawhai Assisi Rest Home and Hospital in Matangi.

Today is also the Ministry of Health's elimination day, meaning 28 days of no new cases since the last community transmission came out of isolation.

That case, a Ministry for Primary Industries worker who tested positive during target testing at the border, who went into isolation on April 30 and came out on May 18.

In mid-March, a teacher at Marist College, located in Mt Albert, Auckland, was off work with symptoms similar to the coronavirus.

The teacher was swab tested on March 19 and four days later, on March 22, the teacher's case was confirmed and the school closed.

Before that point, events had been held at the school including a Fiafia night on March 14 and an extended whānau meeting on March 18.

All of New Zealand's cases until that point had been linked to overseas travel but the teacher had not been overseas or in contact with anyone who recently returned home.

The transmission of the virus at the school, which spread among students, staff, parents and even principal Raechelle Taulu, slowed by the end of March, with only two cases reported after the end of the month - one in mid-April and another in mid-May.

A teacher was the first person to test positive in the cluster. Photo / Michael Craig

Elsewhere, the ministry confirmed this afternoon the total number of Covid-19 cases in New Zealand remains at 1154.

The total number of confirmed and probable cases remains at 1504, meanwhile, the number of recovered cases is 1482.

No one in New Zealand is receiving hospital-level care for the virus.

Yesterday, the ministry said its laboratories completed 824 tests, taking the total of completed tests to 311,121.