Whanganui DHB has been asked to ramp up their testing for Covid-19. Photo / Bevan Conley
Three arrests
Whanganui-Ruapehu police area commander, Nigel Allen confirmed three people were arrested for breaching lockdown rules.
All three had received multiple warnings beforehand and that it was the last resource.
Two people have appeared in court after being stopped several times for driving around outside of essential travel.
The other person was a Youth Court matter.
Police focused on arterial routes in Whanganui over the Easter weekend with several checkpoints stopping traffic to stop all non-essential travel.
"At national level the level of compliance was really, high, there was only one per cent people coming through checkpoints who weren't actually living the spirit of the level four restrictions local experience very similar to that," Allan said.
He acknowledged the community's response and the way they had taken responsibility for its actions.
They will continue to operate the high visibility points in the coming week.
Meanwhile five of the seven confirmed Covid-19 cases in the Whanganui District Health Board area have now recovered but authorities are warning against complacency as the country nears the fourth week of lockdown.
WDHB chief executive Russell Simpson said assessment centres would now be more liberal with testing following the Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield's, instruction to increase testing in the area.
But he said it was an unknown if increasing testing would reveal more confirmed cases.
"There is no evidence of community transmission that's not to say it's not out there and by increasing the swabbing numbers it will provide us with the reassurance that the strategy has worked," Simpson said.
"To the contrary, it might provide us with evidence that there is no community transmission and that's our key goal with upping the swabbing numbers do stress it's only for those symptomatic there's no point swabbing asymptomatic people at this stage."
The DHB had 25 patients present to the centres on Monday and 20 of them were swabbed giving them a 80 per cent swab rate.
"We're actually starting to see those patients coming through that are sicker than the initial period when CVAC opened when the worried (but) well attended resulting in a lower swab rate."
He said the total number of swab tests to date is 463 with 419 negative and seven positive and 37 results with a laboratory awaiting analysis.
"We are going to be more liberal around our swabbing and today we are reaching out to particularly essential workers and those who are at high risk or at high risk vulnerability and inviting them to attend one of the CVACs if they are symptomatic."
The DHB will be sending out flyers inviting St John, Fire and Emergency, police, supermarket and age care workers.
Simpson said this was because they were required to move out of their bubble to deliver their workforce obligations and are at a higher risk of exposure to Covid-19 then any other person that stays within their bubble.
He asks any essential staff that has flu-like symptoms or a feverish type illness to attend an assessment centre and if they require a swab they will need to be isolated for a period of time.
"That will have implications on our workforce if that happens particularly all the essential workers if they're asked to self-isolate following a swab, because they won't be able to attend work so if the test is positive they will have to isolate for 14 days, if the result is negative and they don't show symptoms within 48 hours they can return to work."
But he wanted to remind staff that unwellness can be mild and not everyone presenting Covid-19 has severe symptoms.
Incident controller Louise Allsopp said it was crucial people stayed home over the next week.
"If you are already using existing support networks please keep using these but if you require additional support we've got the welfare team at the respected councils."
• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website
Comment: Planting a range of trees will give fruit at different times of the year.