Covid 19 coronavirus: 14 close contacts of Northland community case test negative | T-10 NEWS

VIRUS LATEST:
• Covid-19 has now claimed 2.13 million lives worldwide, with a total of 99.3m cases.
• Meanwhile NZ health officials are investigating a case of the virus in the community – a woman, 56, who was infected in a managed isolation facility with the South African strain.
• Australia swiftly halted its travel bubble with NZ after news of the latest case.
• Audrey Young: Aussie suspension adds to Cabinet’s Covid agenda
• Cabinet meets today to discuss the latest outbreak, though Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says it’s premature to discuss a change to alert levels.
• Covid-19: Traveller’s worries over mingling at isolation hotel.
• Covid contact’s dad aghast at advice; expert responds.

Fourteen close contacts of the Northland Covid community case have tested negative, Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins says.

Three more close contacts are still waiting for test results.

It follows Hipkins yesterday announcing that two close contacts of the case, her husband and hairdresser, were negative.

Thousands more people who have had Covid-19 tests in the past two days should get their results today.

The testing will give a clearer picture whether the virus has spread after a 56-year-old woman tested positive for Covid-19 after leaving managed isolation in Auckland travelling widely in Northland.

By 9am this morning more than 120 cars were lining up at the new testing station at the Ruakākā racecourse.

Many in the queue had lined up yesterday but had been unsuccessful in getting tested.

Ruakākā resident Irene Teruki waited for about seven hours at the refinery before being told she would face another long wait as nearby port workers were being tested around 5:30pm.

With only about 90 cars in front of her this morning, she was optimistic she would get the test today. “I have faith, it’s way closer than I was yesterday.”

A lot of people were caught out by the change in venue. Almost all of the people spoken to initially went to the refinery before being told the testing station had been moved to the racecourse.

Meanwhile at the Winger Cres testing centre in Kamo there were 50 cars in the queue just before 10am today.

An improved traffic system is in place, with cones used to create a third lane for vehicles.

Traffic is able to flow through, avoiding a repeat of yesterday’s traffic which created major road blocks that police were called in to manage.

One couple in the line said they had waited at Pohe Island for two hours yesterday, only to be turned away because of traffic blocking the road.

They arrived at the Kamo testing station at 8.30am this morning and have around 30 cars ahead of them. The man cannot return to work until he has a negative Covid test result.

They were at the Fat Camel Cafe hours after the infected woman was.

The case sparked thousands to queue for tests yesterday at Northland pop-up stations. Some waited in baking temperatures for more than three hours.

Health officials stressed that only those who had symptoms, or had visited the more than 30 sites the patient had visited, should seek a test.

The Northland community case, a 56-year-old woman who returned from overseas earlier this month, contracted the South African variant, called B.1.3.5.1, while in managed isolation at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland. The variant is believed to be more infectious than the original strain of coronavirus.

Transtasman flights

The emergence of the community case appears to have prompted Australia to immediately suspend its one-way travel bubble with New Zealand for at least 72 hours.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she had told Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison her Government had confidence in its processes.

“It is Australia’s decision as to how they manage their borders,” she said.

Australia also wants anyone who arrived there from New Zealand on or since January 14 to isolate and get tested for the coronavirus.

How did community case get the virus?

Hipkins said was “highly likely” the woman had contracted the virus from a fellow returnee towards the end of her stay in managed isolation at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland, between January 9 and 13.

Travellers who stayed in MIQ at the Pullman between January 9 and 24 are being asked to self-isolate “immediately”.

Director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield told Newstalk ZB’s Heather Du Plessis-Allan an investigation had started to find out how the woman was infected.

He said health officials “are not leaving any rock unturned”.

While he wasn’t sure if it was the case at the Pullman, he said some managed isolation facilities put occupants in vans to transport them to the location where they can complete their physical activity.

“That would be of course one of the places we would be looking.”

He said the investigation would review what mix of people travelled in the vans.

“Whether they are people, some of whom might have arrived just recently, tested negative, but … mixed with people who’ve been there a while, and I guess that is one of the opportunities there could be for cross-infection so we’d want to just shut that down.”