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New Zealand has reached 24 days without a new case of Covid-19 and the country's second largest cluster has been closed.
The Ministry of Health has confirmed on its website there were no new cases after 824 lab tests yesterday.
It brought the total number of tests to 311,121.
In a statement the Ministry said the combined total of confirmed and probable cases remained at 1504.
The number of recovered cases is 1482.
An additional significant cluster ‐ Marist College in Auckland - has now closed. This meant only five significant clusters remained open. The Marist College cluster is linked to 96 cases, behind only the Bluff wedding cluster which is linked to 98.
The Bluff cluster remains open.
A cluster is considered to be closed when there have been no new cases for two incubation periods (i.e. 28 days) from the date when all cases have completed isolation.
Meanwhile, new data has revealed the flu had been reduced to historically low levels in New Zealand.
The low numbers were thanks in part to the raft of radical measures used over the six-week lockdown, including closed borders, heightened hygiene, and a record vaccine uptake.
More than 200,000 Kiwis catch the flu each year, and an estimated 500 people die from it - more than the annual road toll.
Experts have been left astonished at the impact that the fight against Covid-19 has so far had on flu rates - one likening it to a fascinating "natural experiment".
But they warn the common virus will likely creep back up as Kiwis mingle under the looser world of level 1 - and are urging people to keep up good hygiene this winter.
The latest ESR data showed that, for the week ending June 5, the rate of consultations for flu-like illness was five per 100,000, compared with a historical rate of 16.5 per 100,000.
While consultation rates soared to more than 25 per 100,000 in March - in line with a surge in patients being checked for Covid-19 - the following month, figures dropped away to just 4.3 per 100,000.
Usually, at this time of year, there'd be about 22 flu-related calls per 100,000 people to Heathline; rates were instead sitting at about 15 per 100,000.
New Zealand moved to alert level 1 on Monday evening last week, June 8, with life returning to normal for many.
Super Rugby Aotearoa kicked off on Saturday night with the Highlanders defeating the Chiefs in Dunedin 28-27 and the Blues downed the Hurricanes in Auckland yesterday 30-20.
The return of live sport in New Zealand also saw the return of crowds, with over 20,000 attending the game in Dunedin and 43,000, a sell-out, in Auckland.
