There are 24 new community cases of Covid-19, the Ministry of Health has confirmed in a statement today.
As announced this morning, the nine Covid-19 cases reported yesterday in the Nelson/Tasman region have now been confirmed as the Omicron variant, and a further case from the same household was confirmed late yesterday.
They are all from a single family who flew to Auckland on 13 January to attend a family event and other events on the weekend of January 15 and 16. Initial estimates suggest there were at least 100 people at these events.
Another person at the family event has since tested positive - they are being treated as the Omicron variant.
This extra case will be officially added to the overall tally tomorrow.
An Auckland aged residential care worker associated with the family from Nelson, has tested positive for Covid-19. The worker is fully vaccinated and Whole Genome Sequencing is being carried out however we are treating this as a contact of a known Omicron case.
The rest home is now closed to visitors and testing is being carried out on residents and staff.
Anyone who has visited the rest home since Friday 21 January and has symptoms of Covid-19 is asked to isolate and get a test as soon as possible.
Initial locations of interest for Omicron have been identified across Auckland and Nelson/Tasman, and will be published as they are confirmed on the Ministry of Health website.
A Section 70 notice is in place which means anyone who was at a location of interest at the relevant time must follow the testing and isolation instructions. There is a penalty of up to $4000 or imprisonment up to six months for failure to comply.
Today's cases
Sixteen of the new community cases announced today are in Auckland, two in Northland, one in Waikato and five in Lakes.
There are 47 new cases at the border.
The two new cases in Northland are in Kaitaia, both are household members of an existing case.
Two cases were also reported last night and will be added to the case numbers tomorrow. This included one linked case in Whangārei who is a close contact of a case and was already in isolation. The other case was in the Kaitaia area and investigations are continuing to establish a link to previous cases. Whole genome sequencing is underway for this case.
There are 16 cases to report in Auckland today.
Health and welfare providers are now supporting 682 people in the region to isolate at home, including 154 cases.
There is one new case in the Waikato today. The case is in Hamilton and is linked to previous cases.
There are 5 new cases to report in the Lakes DHB region today, all in the Rotorua District.
Three of today’s cases are linked to previously reported cases; two are still being investigated to determine any links.
All cases are isolating at home or in managed accommodation.
There are currently eight people with Covid-19 being treated at hospital. None are in intensive care or high dependency units.
