18 new Covid-19 cases in NZ

New Zealand has 18 new coronavirus cases today, though grave fears remain for elderly residents at a rest home where there has been an outbreak.

 

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told reporters there are a total of 1330 cases. No more deaths have been reported since yesterday, with the death toll remaining at four.

The source of the Covid-19 infection at the Rosewood rest home in Christchurch was still being investigated.

There could be more deaths in the coming days from that rest home, Bloomfield said.

"We may well see further deaths over the coming days, I'll just be honest with you about that."

Bloomfield clarified that a man in his 80s, whose death in Wellington Hospital was announced yesterday, had been a guest at the Bluff wedding cluster. More than 80 people were infected at the function.

Bloomfield said 18 new cases confirmed today was an encouragingly low number. He hoped the downward trend would continue over the next few days as testing ramped back up.

Meanwhile nationwide 14 people remain in hospital, with one person in a critical condition, and there are five patients in intensive care units.

A total of 471 people have now recovered from the virus.

Bloomfield defended the lack of public information released about a cluster relating to an Auckland party with 35 cases, saying it was a "private event" which was "well-bounded" and everyone involved had been contacted.

In terms of lockdown compliance, Bloomfield said there had been 847 breaches and 109 prosecutions.

Three rest home clusters

There are three "significant" clusters in rest homes - two in Christchurch and one in Waikato.

The elderly were vulnerable to a particularly poor outcome from the virus, Bloomfield said.

Priority work was happening in this area to protect vulnerable people.

The Rosewood rest home residents who had been moved to Burwood Hospital were not being treated as hospitalisations because their treatment was what it would be in their dementia unit at the aged care facility, he said.

Guidance on measures that aged care facilities should have in place were updated yesterday, Bloomfield said.

Asked whether they'd consider routine testing on people moving into aged residential care, Bloomfield said all residents were required to go into self-isolation and testing was just "one part" of keeping people safe.

A cluster identified at a Spectrum facility caring for the intellectually disabled now had 28 cases.

The infection originated in the community and then spread to Spectrum Care. Five cases are directly related to the care facility while the other cases were in households.

On the 13 Kiwis returning to New Zealand today after being on a cruise ship off Uruguay, Bloomfield said none of them were unwell enough to receive hospital care and they would go into quarantine after being tested.

Discussing a supermarket worker in Flaxmere who had tested positive, 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.

Bloomfield said health officials were looking at Google and Apple's contact tracing work but it wouldn't be available until mid-May and they were looking at bringing in another app for New Zealand before then.

Calls to Healthline now answered within '10 seconds'

A report from Healthline showed many people had serious symptoms by the time they called and Bloomfield urged anyone who was unwell to seek care without delay.

They could do this by calling their GP or Healthline, he said.

Calls to Healthline were now being answered within 10 seconds.

Bloomfield urged people to reach out "across the generations" this Easter Sunday to keep whānau connected.

Comments

Karma is tough, but never unjust. We knew by mid January that this virus was a dangerous thing at large in the world. Those who refused to change their plans have to live with the consequences, not just to them, but to those innocent people they infected.