Taranaki has its first suspected Omicron case.
Today the Ministry of Health confirmed a new Covid-19 case in Taranaki, that has been linked to the January Omicron cluster.
Taranaki DHB's Covid-19 response manager, Gillian Campbell, says this person was on the same flight as the air steward who has been identified as part of this cluster. The person has been isolating in New Plymouth since being identified as a close contact.
"Our Public Health team has started investigation work to determine if there are any additional exposure events. Any new locations of interest will be published on the Ministry of Health website as they are identified.
"We expected that we could get some positive results from the flight exposure into New Plymouth last week, and that appears to be the situation with the new case. Whole genome sequencing is underway but, in the interim, this case is being treated as a suspected Omicron."