20 community cases of COVID-19; 2 confirmed cases and 2 historical cases in managed isolation; more than 60,000 vaccines administered yesterday

Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health

There are 20 new community cases today. 19 of these are household or known contacts and only one of these remains unlinked. Interviews are underway with that person to determine how they are linked to the current outbreak. As noted yesterday, we are expecting some fluctuations in case numbers at this point in the outbreak. 

12,427 tests were taken yesterday, including more than 7,000 swabs taken in the Auckland region, and more than 1,500 essential worker tests. We have also had over 1,000 saliva tests since Monday with the majority in the last 48 hours. Over 400 employers will be instigating saliva testing for almost 4,500 employees across New Zealand. 

Testing at high levels in Auckland remains an essential part of our outbreak response to detect every community case and stop onwards transmission.  

We continue to urge anyone in Auckland with cold or flu symptoms, no matter how mild, to come forward to be tested. 

In addition, both people with and without symptoms who live in a suburb of interest are asked to get a test. These are: Mt Eden, Massey, Māngere, Favona, Papatoetoe, Ōtara, Manurewa.

Cases 

• Number of new community cases: 20
• Number of new cases identified at the border: Four 
• Location of new cases: Auckland 
• Location of community cases (total): Auckland 1,010 (625 of whom have recovered); Wellington 17 (16 of whom have recovered)
• Number of community cases (total): 1,027 (in current community outbreak) 
• Cases infectious in the community : Seven (64%) of yesterday’s 11 cases have exposure events
• Cases in isolation throughout the period they were infectious : Four (36%) of yesterday’s 11 cases
• Cases epidemiologically linked: 19 of today’s cases
• Cases to be epidemiologically linked: 1 of today’s cases
• Cases epidemiologically linked (total): 995 (in current cluster) (7 in past 14 days unlinked) 
• Number of sub-clusters: Nine epidemiologically linked subclusters. Of these, one is active, seven are contained and one is dormant. The three largest subclusters are the Māngere church group: 384; and Birkdale social network cluster: 80; secondary community transmission associated with the Māngere church group 166.
• There are ten epidemiologically unlinked subclusters.
• Cases in hospital: 10 (total): North Shore (1); Middlemore (6); Auckland (3)
• Cases in ICU or HDU: Three
• Confirmed cases (total): 3,682 since pandemic began
• Historical cases, since 1 Jan 2021 (total): 151 out of 1,864 since 1 Jan 2021 

Contacts

• Number of active contacts being managed (total):: 1,140
• Percentage who have received an outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements): 94%
• Percentage with at least one test result: 82%

Locations of interest

• Locations of interest (total): 142 (as at 10am 18 September)

Tests  

• Number of tests (total): 3,218,752
• Number of tests total (last 24 hours): 12,427
• Tests in Auckland (last 24 hours): 7,411
• Tests rolling average (last 7 days): 12,775
• Testing centres in Auckland: 21

Wastewater*

• Wastewater detections: There are no unexpected detections. 

COVID-19 vaccine update

• Vaccines administered to date (total): 4,630,806; 1st doses: 3,049,241; 2nd doses: 1,581,565
• Vaccines administered yesterday (total): 60,480; 1st doses: 33,048; 2nd doses: 27,432
• Māori: 1st doses: 286,766; 2nd doses: 138,377
• Pacific Peoples: 1st doses: 184,868; 2nd doses: 95,701

NZ COVID-19 tracer

• Registered users (total): 3,228,277
• Poster scans (total): 366,380,713
• Manual diary entries (total): 16,505,506
• Poster scans in 24 hours to midday yesterday: 2,524,913

 * There was no detection of COVID-19 in a wastewater sample collected on 14 September from Snells/Agies. This follows a detection from this site on 7 September, it is likely that this earlier detection was from known cases in the area. Recovered cases can continue shedding viral matter for weeks after recovering.  

Subcluster reporting 

A number of clusters are no longer cause for concern as we are not seeing new positive cases within them. Each cluster that remains of interest, could be considered as a big bubble with the majority being close-knit groups of households There has been good communication and engagement with these groups of households. 

Additional reporting will now include the number of subclusters that are active, contained, dormant or closed, based on the time since the last case associated with the subcluster was reported, and factors like whether the case was a household member. This helps us determine the risk associated with each subcluster.  

• Active subclusters: Cases reported within the previous 14 days and are not household or other known contacts of previous cases  
• Contained subclusters: Cases reported within the previous 14 days and are household or other known contacts of previous cases  
• Dormant subclusters: No cases reported in the previous 14 days  
• Closed subclusters: No cases reported in previous 28 days 

Confirmed cases identified at the border 

Historical cases identified at the border 

MIL OSI