More than 50 people are still being sought after a Covid-infected Australian tourist took a weekend break in Wellington last month. Photo / File
More than 50 people are still being sought after a Covid-infected Australian tourist took a weekend break in Wellington last month. Photo / File
There are no new cases of Covid in the community and two new cases in managed isolation today, the Ministry of Health says.
A third historical case has also been identified after a person arrived from Inida on June 12 and tested positive for Covid on day 12.
One of the latest two cases arrived from South Africa on June 25 and tested positive on day five of their stay. The second arrived on June 29 from the United Kingdom and was confirmed with Covid during a day one routine test.
The Ministry of Health said a previous case reported on June 28 who arrived from South Africa had now been reclassified as 'under investigation' and the case removed from the daily tally of active cases.
Health officials continue to hunt possible contacts after an infected Australian tourist holidayed in Wellington three weeks ago. The ministry said today 2695 people had been identified as contacts. Of those, 97 per cent of people had returned a negative result.
With an outbreak of the contagious Delta variant causing growing problems in several Australian states, quarantine-free travel between Australia and New Zealand has remained on hold.
Queensland authorities today announced three new community cases and extended Brisbane's lockdown, though eased restrictions in other parts of the state.
Flights are set to resume with South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and the Capital Territory from Monday and with New South Wales from Wednesday - though Sydney recorded 24 new cases yesterday.
Travellers will be required to provide a negative pre-departure test and must not have visited blocked states in recent days.
There are currently 27 active Covid cases in New Zealand.
More than 50 people are still being sought after a Covid-infected Australian tourist took a weekend break in Wellington last month. Photo / File
Today the Government moved to boost the vaccination workforce, calling for retired and overseas-trained health professionals and the wider health workforce to become vaccinators.
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the Medicines Regulations had been changed to allow more health workers to be trained to give vaccinations ahead of the biggest vaccination campaign in New Zealand's history.
"We're calling on retired nurses, people who have trained overseas but are not registered here, and those in the kaiāwhina workforce – who work in our health system already in roles such as healthcare assistants – to join our vaccinator team," Hipkins said.
"More than 12,500 people with a wide range of backgrounds, including many ex health professionals, have already logged their details in the Hands-Up database, which is designed to capture a broad range of skills and backgrounds for different roles.
"We anticipate many of the former health professionals who have entered their details into Hands-Up will be keen to become involved in the vaccination programme."
Hipkins said the Immunisation Advisory Centre had trained more than 8100 Covid-19 vaccinators from across the health sector since the beginning of the year.
"Current projections are that we will need 1600 full-time equivalent vaccinators at the peak of the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out. This means we will likely need between 6000 to 6500 people vaccinating in part or full-time roles."
He said the newly trained vaccinators would be trained in basic emergency techniques, including resuscitation and treatment of anaphylaxis.
Meanwhile, Kiwis stranded in Australia were looking forward to quarantine-free transtasman travel partially resuming at midnight Sunday.
To be eligible, travellers must not have been in New South Wales on or after 11.59pm on June 22 or in Queensland, the Northern Territory or Western Australia on or after 10.30pm on June 26.
Quarantine-free travel from New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia is paused until at least 11.59pm on Tuesday.
