Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield has pleaded with New Zealanders to not go to work if they are feeling even a little unwell, saying it will be "critical" to efforts to contain the coronavirus.
In an update at 1pm Bloomfield said there were no new confirmed or probable cases.
It's the fourth day in a row that no new cases have been announced.
There remained five confirmed coronavirus cases in New Zealand and two probable cases.
All five confirmed cases were being cared for at home. That includes the first patient diagnosed, who was discharged from Auckland City Hospital yesterday.
All close contacts of the confirmed cases had been contacted by public health staff, Bloomfield said.
"It's very unusual for us to get every single casual contact - you can imagine if it was a mass gathering like a concert," he told reporters.
"However what the evidence suggests is that to be successful in containment you need to get at least 80 per cent of those casual contacts, and we have been able to do that in all of the cases, both confirmed and probable."
A "close contact" is defined as being within one metre of a person for more than 15 minutes.
One of two probable cases - a woman in her 70s who had been on the Grand Princess cruise ship - who had been treated at North Shore Hospital was also now home.
"Of the other confirmed cases, none is requiring hospital care at this point."
Bloomfield stressed that it was up to every New Zealander to prevent an outbreak.
Everyone - including himself - was guilty at times of going to work with a runny nose and a sore throat, or sending their slightly sick kid to school. Now was the time to be much stricter, he said.
"All of us have a role to play in stopping further spread.
"I know that all of us probably are guilty at times of if we have got a bit of a runny nose or a bit of a sore throat you might go to work because it is not too bad.
"Or we might if our child is slightly unwell send them to school."
People needed to be "much, much more strict" on this than usual.
"It will be a mainstay of our efforts."
It was particularly important that people who were feeling sick did not go to large gatherings, including the March 15 commemorations this weekend, and concerts.
Yesterday Bloomfield said protecting the health of New Zealanders is their number one priority.
"It's good the key public health measures of strict border controls, self-isolation for people who have come from overseas hot-spots or been in contact with local cases have had the desired impact so far.
"Now is the time to be even more vigilant," Bloomfield said.
"Everyone can help by ensuring good health etiquette – washing hands for twenty seconds, sneezing into your arm and not touching your face," Bloomfield said.
"Fundamental to this is not putting yourself or others at risk if you are unwell - not going to work or being out in public if you are sick.
"All of us have a role to play in stopping further spread."
More than 115,800 people have been infected worldwide and over 4000 have died.
The situation has become increasingly dire in Italy which now has a country-wide lockdown as it now has more cases than China with 10,149 infections and 631 deaths.
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Comments
The two most important dimensions of the issue to our politicians are:
1. How do they appear to be doing something (this being especially important in an election year).
2. How do they minimise the short term impact on economic indicators (this also being especially important in an election year).
The government PR machine is pushing the story that what they are doing is successful because of the lack of positive tests returned. What they do not report on is the number of tests being done. It is extremely difficult to be determined eligible for testing in NZ. You must both have the symptoms AND be in close contact with one of the already positively tested (half a dozen) individuals!
A more responsible strategy from a public health perspective would be to do some random saturation testing of pools of people in (considered) at risk areas and generate some valid data models from which considered predictions could be statistically extrapolated into the general population .... but that could impact on the budget left available to buy votes prior to the next election.