Covid 19 coronavirus: No new case today in New Zealand

There are no new Covid cases in the community today – nor any new cases of managed isolation in the last 24 hours.

Health Minister Chris Hipkins and Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield gave today’s Covid-19 update.

All former guests of Hotel Pullman have been contacted. Five people have not yet been tested, but will be today, Hipkins said.

When asked if it took more than a week to test all Pullman returnees was good enough, Hipkins said the government relied on “goodwill” for people to be tested if contacted by health officials.

Bloomfield said all of Pullman’s guests were contacted within 48 hours and all were being isolated while waiting for rehearsal. They were visited by a mobile testing site today and their results are expected this afternoon.

The minister is awaiting an update Wednesday after environmental testing by the ESR at the Pullman Hotel.

“We can never form a 100 percent consistent view of what happened in Pullman,” Hipkins said.

One technical team believes it most likely included airborne transmission – instead of surfaces – but it was a matter of studying how this happened, Bloomfield said.

An air conditioning theory is still being pursued, but Hipkins said international evidence was “fragmentary at best”.

He will wait until an investigation is completed into what happened in Pullman before returning it online.

CCTV cameras will be updated in Pullman before guests start returning by mid-February.

Workers at Jetpark – the quarantine facility – should not shine the moon on other jobs. Most were now directly employed by the Government.

There were 3017 tests processed yesterday and all the results were negative – including close case contacts.

Hipkins urged New Zealand to show kindness and respect and said “it was nobody’s fault” if they caught Covid-19.

He said there have been examples of people being humiliated for isolation and testing.

He thanked the workers who had gone “beyond” to process the tests and the returnees who were asked to stay in their rooms for longer.

“It’s never easy.”

Hipkins said it should not depend on “who knows” if a MIQ rejection was considered.

He encouraged anyone who refused compassionate entry to request a review and called it an “appeal process”.

He said the capacity for MIQ was around 4500 and the government was not looking to create more facilities.

Hipkins said it is “never helpful” to set the achievement of keeping Covid-19 away from New Zealand as “lucky” or minimizing the hard work of border workers.

The total number of active cases in managed isolation is 69.

The Orewa family who came out positive and moved into a quarantine facility is continuing to recover, Bloomfield said.

There are four testing centers in Auckland. The pop-up evidence center in Albany closed after demand weakened.

Bloomfield has asked his team if they need to change reporting on historic cases while the international community reports acute cases. They are looking at the reporting of historical cases separately.

Officials are finalizing numbers of how many people are believed to have caught Covid in isolated isolated institutions.

Bloomfield said the broadcast inside the facility will be reported.

He echoed Hipkins’ message of being good and said “we are all in this together”.

Hipkins said the situation in Perth did not necessarily change anything from a week ago as they always knew there could be minor outbreaks.

“It’s an illustration of why we were careful.”

Hipkins said he would support the “go too, go early” message that had served New Zealand so well.

The ministerial group on vaccines will meet tomorrow and once it reaches a recommendation made to Medsafe – then it will depend on the Government, Bloomfield said.

There were no new cases in the community over the weekend.

Changes to the Pullman Hotel also went into effect, including:

After passing their 11/12 day test, people will be required to stay in their rooms until they receive a negative test result and are advised to be able to leave the institution.

Returns departing from Pullman will be required to take a day 5 post-departure test and stay home until a negative test result is returned.

If they become symptomatic after they leave Pullman, they should self-isolate and take a test.

Returnees are required to wear a mask when leaving the facility or on their way to their 5th day rehearsal.