16 new community cases, three unlinked

A Covid testing station in Auckland. Photo: NZ Herald
A Covid testing station in Auckland. Photo: NZ Herald
There are 16 new cases of the Delta variant of Covid-19 in the Auckland community, the Ministry of Health has confirmed.

Three of the new cases have not yet been linked to previous confirmed cases.

Two of yesterday's cases had exposure events.

There are 13 people in hospital with four in ICU or HDU. One patient is at North Shore Hospital, seven in Auckland City Hospital and five in Middlemore.

Authorities announced the latest information on the outbreak in a press release, as Aucklanders enjoy their first weekend at level 3 after more than a month in lockdown.

Of the subclusters involved in the Delta outbreak, 10 are epidemiologically linked - of these, two are active, six are contained and two are dormant.

All cases in one of the largest subclusters – the Birkdale Social Network – have now recovered.

There are 14 epidemiologically unlinked subclusters. Of these, three are active, four are contained and seven are dormant.

There are no new unexpected detections in ESR's latest wastewater testing.

Testing continues across the Auckland region today, with a particular focus on Clover Park, Māngere, Favona, Ōtara, Manurewa and Mount Wellington/Sylvia Park, the Ministry said.

There were 50,600 vaccines administered yesterday, made up of 18,981 first doses and 31,619 second doses. This means almost 5 million doses have been delivered in New Zealand (4,968,935), comprising 3,211,763 first doses and 1,757,172 second doses.

New case at Waitakere Hospital

The Ministry of Health also provided further detail of a case involving a patient who visited Waitakere Hospital - as first reported by The New Zealand Herald.

A patient who presented to Waitakere Hospital's ED yesterday with Covid-19 symptoms is now in an Auckland quarantine facility, MoH said.

This person was taken straight to a separate, dedicated area at the hospital for patients with Covid symptoms – patients in this area are kept separate from each other.

The patient returned a positive test and was moved to a negative pressure room before being transported to a quarantine facility following strict Infection, Prevention and Control protocols.

Interviews are continuing with public health staff to determine this person's link to a current cluster.

A small number of patients had also been taken into the same area. These patients will be monitored and tested however, there was no direct contact with the Covid-19 positive patient.

Fewer than 10 patients are affected, the ministry said. Some of these patients have now been discharged and are being followed up by Auckland public health staff.

A small number of staff had contact with the patient, all were wearing full PPE and are fully vaccinated.

Public health officials have assessed the risk to the public to be low.

The Ministry said: "Please get tested if you are a contact, have visited a location of interest at the specific dates and times, are connected to a suburb of interest or have any symptoms of Covid-19 – even those with very mild symptoms need to get tested and isolate at home while waiting for test results."

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