Source: Covid-19 New Zealand Government Announcements
There are 21 new cases of COVID-19 in the New Zealand community to confirm today. This brings the total number of cases in the community outbreak to 51. All cases have or are being transferred safely to a managed isolation facility, under strict infection prevention and control procedures, including the use of full PPE.
Of the 21 new cases, 18 are in Auckland and three are in Wellington — one of which we reported yesterday and has been included in the numbers reported today.
This brings Wellington’s number of community cases to 6.
Of the 51 cases, 32 are linked to other community cases identified in the outbreak. Investigations are continuing to determine whether and how the remaining 19 cases are linked to the outbreak. We will continue to release this information and new locations of interest as it becomes available.
Public health interviews with the cases are continuing. One of the new Wellington cases is a household contact of the previously reported case based in Johnsonville. At this stage, interviews have determined this person’s locations of interest are the same as those for the case we reported yesterday.
Another of the cases flew from Auckland to Wellington on Thursday and has reported no locations of interest in Wellington. The flight is a location of interest and details are on the Ministry of Health website.
ESR continues to run whole genome sequencing on samples taken from all new cases to support ongoing investigations into the outbreak. ESR has completed sequencing for 29 of these cases, including the three Wellington cases reported yesterday, and found all have genome links to the Auckland cluster.
In addition, there are 3 new cases in recent returnees in a managed isolation facility.
Update on today’s cases | health.govt.nz (external link)
COVID-19 media conference — 21 August 2021 at 1pm
