No new community cases; 2 cases of COVID-19 in managed isolation
There are two new positive cases of COVID-19 in managed isolation and no new cases in the community to report today. The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border is three.
Both new cases tested positive on routine testing day 0 and are in managed isolation in Auckland. One arrived on March 14 from India via the United Arab Emirates, while the other case arrived on March 15 from USA.
The total number of active cases in New Zealand is 95 and the total number of confirmed cases is 2,076.
Since January 1, there have been 39 historical cases, out of a total of 265 cases.
Testing information
The total number of tests processed by laboratories to date is 1,824,252.
On Monday, 2,822 tests were processed. The seven-day rolling average up to yesterday is 5,364 tests processed per day.
In a statement, the Ministry of Health said it’s important testing levels in the community remain high so we continue to have confidence in our surveillance and detection.
"We can also report that four wastewater testing samples — three from a site linked to Papatoetoe and one from a wider wastewater collection point, which includes Papatoetoe — last night returned negative results for COVID-19 detection."
This follows a weak positive test result detected on Friday in routine wastewater sampling at the site linked to Papatoetoe, which has been assessed as not posing a risk to the community. The most likely explanation for the weak positive detection is continued shedding of the virus from the recovered COVID-19 cases from the February cluster who have returned home from the Auckland quarantine facility.
"We know that people who have recently had COVID-19 may continue to shed fragments of the virus for some weeks after they have recovered, without being infectious to others. Wastewater sampling can detect these fragments, which are not infectious and their presence is not considered a risk to the community."
This is supported by results from geospatial mapping linking the homes/residential addresses of the individuals to the catchment area where the sample was taken. The new negative wastewater testing results also provide good evidence to support this. The recovered cases are no longer infectious and there is no evidence that the wastewater is infectious.
For up-to-date information on testing locations in Auckland, visit https://www.arphs.health.nz/ and information on all testing locations nationwide is available on the Healthpoint website https://www.healthpoint.co.nz/covid-19/
