Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield has confirmed the man who died from coronavirus in Wellington was connected to the Bluff wedding cluster.
New Zealand has 18 new coronavirus cases today, 14 confirmed and 4 probable, he said.
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Dr Bloomfield said there are a total of 1330 cases and no more deaths have been reported since yesterday.
There are 14 people in hospital and five of them are in intensive care, he said.
There are two people in hospital in the Southern area, one is in Dunedin Hospital in a critical condition.
A total of 471 people have now recovered from the virus.
Bloomfield confirmed the man who died in Wellington, which was announced yesterday, was connected to the Bluff wedding cluster.
The man in his 80s passed away at Wellington Public Hospital on Friday.
He first became unwell on March 26 and was admitted on March 28.
The wedding was held at Oyster Cove Restaurant and Bar on March 21, before a ban on large gatherings was introduced, and was attended by about 70 guests.
The venue owners, who made all staff isolate after the wedding, said guests had travelled from all around the country.
The MoH said today there was one new case connected to the Bluff cluster in the last 24 hours taking the total for the event to 86.
This means once again the Bluff wedding cluster is the largest of the 13 clusters in the country, followed by the Marist College cluster at 85 and the Matamata bar cluster at 70 (both had 0 new cases in the last 24 hours).
Zero new cases in SDHB area
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health has confirmed there were no new confirmed or probable cases of Covid-19 in the SDHB area in the last 24 hours.
This is the first time the Southern area had no new cases to report since March 21, 23 days ago.
Despite this, the South is still the health board area with the highest amount of cases at 206, followed by Waitemata with 192 cases and Waikato with 176 cases.
Four of the 14 confirmed and probable cases announced today are connected to clusters.
There is one new case each connected to the Spectrum daycare in Auckland, the Bluff wedding cluster and both of the rest homes in Christchurch.
There are no new cases linked to the World Hereford Conference which was held in Queenstown and has 33 cases connected to it.
Discussing a supermarket worker in Flaxmere who had tested positive for the virus, and lives in a house with nine other people, Bloomfield said it was "very clear" he wasn't infected at work and the origin of the infection was from Queenstown.
- ODT online
