There are eight new cases of COVID-19 to report in New Zealand today, all in managed isolation. There are no new community cases.

One person arrived on 19 November from Finland via Sweden and Qatar and tested positive at around day 3 of their stay in managed isolation.

One person arrived on 19 November from Canada via Hong Kong and tested positive at around day 3 of their stay in managed isolation.

Both are now in quarantine at our Auckland facility.

One person arrived on 19 November from the United States and tested positive at around day 3 of their stay in managed isolation. This case is in quarantine in our Christchurch facility.

Five people are part of the same family that arrived on 19 November from Mexico via the United States and all tested positive at around day 3 of their stay in managed isolation.

These people are in quarantine in our Christchurch facility.

There are two additional recovered cases, which means there are now 59 active cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand.

Our total number of confirmed cases is 1,683.

Yesterday our laboratories completed 5,779 tests for COVID-19, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 1,243,518.

Air New Zealand

As previously announced, Air New Zealand has made the Ministry aware of a possible case of COVID-19 in a staff member, who tested positive during routine screening in China.

Further test samples were processed rapidly in our Auckland laboratory, and these have returned a positive result, so this is now considered a confirmed case. Our case numbers will report this case tomorrow.

A source investigation is underway and swabs have been sent to ESR in Wellington for genome sequencing, which is being done as quickly as possible.

This person, 7 close contacts and 6 casual contacts from the flight all arrived in New Zealand this morning and were all tested on arrival.
This person and the close contacts are all in quarantine at our Auckland facility.

So far we also have test results on some of the 11 close contacts, all of which are negative. All close contacts are in self isolation or managed isolation.

Out of an abundance of caution, we have been following public health protocols and have already been investigating this case as if it were a confirmed case in New Zealand.

We want to thank the staff member and Air New Zealand for their assistance with our investigation.

We continue to investigate locations of interest the person may have visited in the relevant time period prior to departing on their flight. These are listed, and updated, on the Auckland Regional Public Health Service website.

The Ministry yesterday sent a push notification to users of our COVID Tracer app who scanned in to Animates Manukau on Saturday 21 November between 1.22pm and 2.11pm and the Ministry has recorded fewer than ten people who scanned in to the business at that time. This is a useful reminder to everyone to continue to regularly use the COVID Tracer app to scan into any places they visit each day.

The Ministry advises anyone who visited a location of interest during the relevant time period and develops symptoms should self-isolate and get tested.

Testing is free and locations to get a test can be found on the ARPHS website and via the Ministry of Health website.

NZ COVID Tracer app

There are now 2,381,200 registered app users and poster scans have reached 125,470,798.

Please continue to use the app to scan into locations displaying a QR code – you never know when you will need to call on your contact tracing diary. The more every person scans, the safer we will all be.