There are no new positive cases of Covid-19 in the community today. There are six new cases in managed isolation, director general of health Ashley Bloomfield says.
There are no new positive cases of Covid-19 in the community today - the fourth straight day - but Kiwis won't find out until tomorrow if alert levels will drop this weekend.
There are six new cases in managed isolation, director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says. Two people from managed isolation facilities are in Auckland hospitals - both are in stable condition.
Bloomfield said he was confident of a "sharp perimeter" around the current outbreak.
"Now is not the time to reassess alert levels, but Cabinet is meeting tomorrow on that," said Bloomfield.
"What we will be looking for over the next 24 to 48 hours is continuing [to ensure] our close contacts remain in isolation."
He also wanted to see the test results of the tail end of the gym contacts and another day of no new community cases ahead of the Cabinet discussions. "All of this will give us confidence there is no ongoing transmission.
"The priority is to make sure we have tied up all loose ends from the college and casual-plus contacts from the earlier Kmart exposure, MIT and the gym last week."
On the big re-testing programme at Papatoetoe High School, Bloomfield said 11 students had not had a second test yet.
Eight were visited yesterday - two had refused tests but were being managed with isolation plans. There is one student that the ministry is still actively trying to find.
It was important to get to the last remaining students before making any decision on whether Auckland would change alert levels, Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins said earlier today.
Bloomfield said the Papatoetoe High School community had responded well - "that is hugely helpful and complementary to any messages we put out publicly".
He said he is unsure why two students are refusing tests.
"There is a small number of people who subscribe to the idea that Covid-19 doesn't exist, but they are managed and isolated and [we have] made sure there is no risk.
"All the 15 cases we have are in four families. All are contained in the Auckland quarantine facility and we are going back to confirm there's no ongoing transmission.
"We just need to be sure there hasn't been seeding of this outbreak outside of Auckland.
"The vast majority of people are doing what they are asked. People know what's expected and they do it, and that's how we've been successful."
There are no other "exposure events" for case N - a mother who went walking with another positive case when they were meant to be isolating. The main concern was their workplace colleagues and they have all tested negative.
Active Case M
In terms of active case M, Bloomfield said: "We have found many people at the gym but still some with test results pending and some need to remain isolating".
"The key things we are looking for are not just the fact we have casual and casual plus contacts ... wider testing provides assurance we don't have wider transmission."
There have been 14,671 tests processed with 7853 from across Auckland. The seven-day rolling average of tests is 9721.
Bloomfield said 45 home visits had been undertaken since Monday - in all visits, people expected to be isolating were doing so.
Of the 185 attendees at CityFitness and Hunters Plaza on February 26, 156 of them (casual plus contacts) have returned a negative test and 29 are due for testing and are being followed up on.
At MIT there are 44 casual plus contacts from February 22 to 25 February - two have returned negative day 5 tests and all have been successfully contacted, and the other two who haven't yet returned a test result are being followed up.
Regarding Kmart, of the 1882 people who were at that exposure event 43 have not yet returned a test result and the Ministry of Health has been in touch with 42 of them, and they are complying with isolation requirements.
Wastewater test results from ESR had all come back negative, Bloomfield said.
Samples were taken on Monday from three Auckland sites, including from Papatoetoe. Samples from Christchurch and Rotorua were also negative.
He defended the importance of wastewater testing, saying it provided another level of assurance that there was no community transmission.
Saliva testing
Trials of saliva testing in quarantine facilities are under way, with two or three private providers.
"We had already been looking over the last three weeks, one company is willing, eager and ready to go, but they are not the only one," Bloomfield said.
"Saliva testing still uses PCR lab process, so our current labs. There is quite a lot of work they have on with current testing, so the idea would be if we can get to arrangement with a private provider."
"We're putting a layer of protection by vaccinating those workers and their whānau. I've asked the team to start thinking about when we start that wider roll-out, that we first go to the South Auckland community."
Covid-19 symptoms
On different symptoms of Covid-19: "Some of the things we see here in NZ, you haven't seen overseas," Bloomfield said. Because the current cluster is made up of mostly young people, they are displaying symptoms that may not have been seen before.
The ministry hasn't rolled out a big vaccination campaign yet because the focus is on vaccinating border workforce and their families, Bloomfield said, but there has been engagement with iwi and Māori leaders.
"We won't be starting the wider vaccination programme until the second half of the year."
On Brian and Hannah Tamaki of Destiny Church being in Southland, Bloomfield said: "Well he does get around, doesn't he?"
"The request of them has been clear, they should be minimising their interaction with large groups of people."
On the potential damage of Hannah Tamaki saying she won't get the vaccine: "I'm confident we've got a really powerful narrative here, and NZers will take up the opportunity and make the decision themselves."
Bloomfield said the information campaign was "the long game".
He has been on Zoom calls with more than 400 Pacific community leaders.
"The wider public information campaign has not gone live, but there is already a lot of information available."
Covid-19 data modelling expert Shaun Hendy this morning told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking that he believed if there were no new community cases today and tomorrow the Government would likely reduce alert levels.
But even with no new community cases - for four straight days - there is no chance the level 3 restrictions imposed on Auckland will be eased early.
Kiwis will have to wait until after tomorrow's Cabinet meeting before finding out if Auckland will drop out of level 3 and the rest of New Zealand out of level 2 from 6am on Sunday.
Hendy said the UK variant of the virus was challenging to curtail but it appeared shorter, sharper lockdowns to control outbreaks were worth it in the long run.
There was a sting in the tail of the initial outbreak with a three-day lockdown not sufficient to close it out.
"The one thing we know with this B.1.1.7 variant, you really don't want to let it get out of control. It spreads more rapidly and does take a lot of work to control it so my calculus is these shorter, sharper lockdowns to bring these new variants under control is probably worth it in the long run."
He said it was a super-spreading virus so while four out of five people who get infected would only impact household or very close contacts, the fifth person would spread it far and wide.
"It was a good sign yesterday that none of the very large number of tests processed on Tuesday came back positive," Hendy told Hosking.
"That's an excellent sign and we'll be hoping we see the same thing today."
More than 98 per cent of casual plus contacts of "Case A" at Papatoetoe High School have tested negative, after being retested.
A further 33 "close plus" contacts at Kmart Botany, where another of the cluster cases worked, had also returned negative tests, as had 1823 of 1868 people who reported being in the store at the times of interest.
