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NZ has 13 new cases of Covid-19 linked to the South Auckland family; New cases are work mates and their family members, as well as a Mt Albert school student; Anyone who contracts Covid-19 will now go into managed isolation

NZ has 13 new cases of Covid-19 linked to the South Auckland family; New cases are work mates and their family members, as well as a Mt Albert school student; Anyone who contracts Covid-19 will now go into managed isolation
Ashley Bloomfield. Getty Images.

New Zealand has 13 new cases of Covid-19, which are all linked to the South Auckland family that contracted the virus from an unknown source.

All patients will now be transferred to managed isolation facilities to try to curb the spread of the virus. Previously they had to self-isolate.

Of the new cases, one is a Mt Albert Grammar student.

Three cases are workmates of one of the initial four cases, who work at Americold. Another seven cases are family members of these people.

A further one infected person is a workmate of another South Auckland family member who works at Finance Now. And another case is a family member.

Furthermore, there is one more probable case connected to this cluster.

One of these patients had visited a resthome in the Waikato.

The two original South Auckland cases also did a boat trip in Taupo during their Rotorua trip. 

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said authorities were “moving at pace to stamp out Covid”, but didn’t indicate whether, or how, lockdowns will be extended.

Auckland remains at Level 3 lockdown until midnight Friday. The rest of the country is at Level 2. Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield will provide another update at 1pm tomorrow. Ardern will hold a briefing later on Friday to provide information about what's next in terms of alert level movements.

Bloomfield said 6,006 Covid-19 tests were processed on Wednesday. Over 10,000 swabs were taken.

He said genome testing done on the South Auckland family’s swabs didn’t show any connections to people who have been in managed isolation recently. In other words, there wasn’t a strong relationship between their strains of the virus and the strains of people who have arrived from overseas. However genome testing hasn’t been done on everyone in managed isolation.

Bloomfield said the stain of the new cluster is broadly linked to the UK and Australia. Work is still underway to try to identify the source of the infection.

Here is a press release from the Ministry of Health:

There is one new case of COVID-19 to report in managed isolation – a woman in her 30s who arrived in New Zealand from the Philippines on August 8. She has been in managed isolation at the Distinction Hotel and tested positive around day 3 of her stay.  

There are also 13 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 to report in the community today. They are all in Auckland and are all linked to the four people from the same family in Auckland previously reported. We will put the details of these cases up on our website.

That means we have 14 new confirmed cases to report today in total, bringing our total number of active cases in New Zealand to 36, 17 of which are linked to the recent outbreak.

That brings our total number of confirmed cases to 1,238, which is the number we report to the World Health Organization.

We are now treating these cases as a cluster – and what we know about clusters is that they grow. What is important is that we investigate these cases to their full extent, and that is exactly where people who are coming forward to be tested are helping us.

One new case is a student at Mount Albert Grammar. The student is a relative of the previously announced cases in the community.

The school has sent a letter to over 100 students and a handful of staff who are considered close contacts, advising them to self-isolate for 14 days. The student was not symptomatic while at school and has not been at school since they became unwell and got tested, so the chance of exposure to the school community is considered to be lower risk. Everyone in the school community has been asked to monitor their health closely and seek advice from their GP or Healthline if they have any symptoms of COVID-19, which could include:

New or worsening cough, sore throat, runny nose, fever, temporary loss of smell and difficulty breathing.

Three people who have tested positive are employees of AmeriCold, the workplace of one of the previously reported cases. Another seven cases are family members of those employees.

Two of the AmeriCold sites, Mount Wellington and Auckland Airport, have been closed, and all staff from the Airport site have now been tested. A mobile testing unit went to the homes of symptomatic people from the Mount Wellington site yesterday and further testing is underway.

Another person who has tested positive is an employee of Finance Now, the workplace of one of the previously reported cases. That person was admitted to North Shore Hospital and they have since been discharged.

There is another person who has tested positive for COVID-19 who is a family member of that Finance Now employee.

There is also one probable case of COVID-19 in the community, also linked to the new outbreak.

As part of our overall national response to this new outbreak, the Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has directed medical officers of health that all cases of COVID-19 are to be managed in a quarantine facility.

This is different to how positive cases were managed when we were last at level 4 and 3 and shows how serious we are about limiting any risk of ongoing transmission, even in self isolation. This will apply to any cases and also close family members who might be at risk as appropriate. These facilities have been set up specifically, and have excellent processes and resources in place to look after people, including health staff on site at all times. This will also help us avoid any further inadvertent spread into the community.

Yesterday our laboratories processed 6,006 tests, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 508,711. The total number of swabs collected yesterday was well over 10,000.

There were many thousand more samples collected yesterday that have been processed since midnight, which will be reflected in the number we report tomorrow.

Demand has been high at the dedicated testing centres across Auckland and we thank people for being so patient while they waited yesterday. It is important to know is that while we have a number of pop-up testing stations around Auckland, people can also get testing at their GPs – this is also free. This is the same around the whole country.

Two additional pop up testing sites will open today in Henderson and Airport Oaks, bringing the total number of pop-up and permanent community testing centres in Auckland to 15.

The Vaughan Road centre in Rotorua, and the Miro Street centre in Taupô have extended their hours (9-4pm) and are now open 7 days a week.

A Turangi testing centre opposite the Police station is open today and Friday and a second Rotorua testing centre, at Devon St West's International Stadium will be open today and through the weekend.

Aged residential care facility

We are aware that one of the people who has tested positive has visited a rest home in the Waikato. All aged residential care facilities in the country are currently closed to the public, but anyone who has visited the facility recently should also closely monitor their health and seek advice if they have any concerns.

The visit was when the person was well but they did develop symptoms the next day.  The visit was to a family member resident and the visitor saw their family member and was in contact with several staff.

Waikato DHB have confirmed they are today testing all staff and residents.  The facility has isolated the area visited from the remainder of the facility.  The DHB has staff on standby in the event that they're needed if the ARC staff need to be stood down.

The DHB has ensured that the facility has all the PPE they need. We are working very closely with this facility, and we would like to thank them for being so helpful.

Rotorua

A further update on Rotorua. Testing is available to staff of any business or people who visited any of the businesses at or after the times below.

From what we know so far, the family checked into Wai Ora Lakeside Hotel at 3.30pm on the 8th of August.

We know they visited the Herbs and Spice Thai Restaurant at 8pm that evening – the 8th. The following day at 2.30pm they visited the Pak n Save supermarket at Amohau Street in Rotorua, before heading to Heritage Farm and 3D Art Gallery at 3.30pm. At 4pm they then headed to the Skyline Gondola and Luge.

The following morning on the 10th they visited Sail Barbary Eco Sailing in Taupo at 10.30am before returning to the Heritage Farm and 3D Art Gallery at 3pm.

There was also a visit that evening at 7pm to Burger Fuel Redwood Centre in Rotorua. On their way home, the family stopped for fuel in Hamilton at 9am on Tuesday morning.

For those businesses visited by the family who haven't yet been issued with an alert, the advice is the same - monitor your health and if you're unwell, ring Healthline. Testing is available to any business that requires it and anyone who is symptomatic should take immediate action.

We know there are other locations the family members visited during their time away however at those locations, we are confident there was no other risk of exposure. The family members were the only people at some of these locations, while others were drive throughs.

App alert

This morning for the first time we have utilised the alert function on the NZ COVID Tracer app, which allows us to send a notification to anyone who scanned in to the locations at the same time we know people who have tested positive for COVID-19 were there. We have issued an exposure alert covering the two separate visits to Heritage Farm and the one visit to the Skyline Gondola.

QR codes

NZ COVID Tracer has now recorded 986,000 registered users – that’s 338,000 in the last 48 hours. There have been 138,000 posters created – 51,000 in the last 48 hours. The app has now recorded a total of 2,667,550 poster scans and 449,000 manual entries.

Genome sequencing

We are continuing with genome sequencing investigations. What we know so far is that there has been no exact link with a recent case in MIQ from the samples we have been able to genome sequence, however, genome sequencing of new cases resembles the genome pattern from the UK and Australia most closely.

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

83 Comments

No one believed that it would be just 3 days of Level 3 ... maybe they were telling the truth as Level 4 was inevitable all along ...

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It was possible, if they had caught the very tip of the infection chain and quickly determined who and how it had spread.

Unfortunately we do not live in that universe, but to say it was 'inevitable' that it would be longer than 3 days at level 3 is wrong. We simply didn't and couldn't know until the data was in. There is now enough data available to expect that it will be at least another week at level 3 in Auckland. We'll see what further data emerges over the next 24 hours.

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The dude testing positive in Korea and the other one in Oz over the last few weeks showed that it was inevitable. About as 'inevitable' as spending billions on flattening curves, isolation, elimination and then running a half arsed quarantine system at the border. A crowd that can't build or sell houses was always going to struggle.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/122317608/coronavir…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/422086/person-who-travelled-from-nz…

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Level 4 or bust

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Exactly. They either need to go all in to stamp it out ASAP or give up all pretenses of trying to control it. As we've seen overseas, it will go around like wildfire if people's movements aren't curtailed. Interesting decisions ahead.

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Level 4 and bust.

What's another $200 Billion between the great grand children to extend the lifespan of some 84 year olds?

https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-a…

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Come on, surely now you've realized it's not like any country is going to be able to repay their debts anyway.

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Where do we draw the line?
I have friends who, just by 'luck', parented a terribly deformed child; one given perhaps 10 years to 'live'. 30 years on, and still going.
Should we have 'put her down' at birth as she was never going to be a productive member of our society; one that was going to be an ongoing cost to us all?
Letting 84-year-old die is all very well, as long as it's not us.

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How much medical support will deformed children be getting in a debt ridden post covid economy? This isn't our first rodeo - Spanish, Asian and Hong Kong flu pandemics didn't bring out our internal lemming - why does this one?

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Spanish Flu had plenty of anti-mask lemmings too.

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We are not suggesting that they should be left to die. Extra effort should be made to isolate elderly people from infection if they want that.

We do need strong leaders to draw lines though. We've drawn a line for automotive fatalities for example.

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We have strong leaders and thank goodness they don’t support your self entitled “let them eat cake” philosophy.

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We don't have strong leaders. Look how they handled the quarantines.
There are more options than lockdown/no lockdown. No one is suggesting "let them eat cake" whatever that means.

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Exactly. Avoid lockdowns but do what we can to minimise risk and mitigate.
Lockdown again and the economy is ruined. And with that economic ruin comes ruined lives and futures.

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If we don't lock down now then why did we lock down before?

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Why did we lock down before.

If not to goldplate the health system response & resilience.

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To flatten the curve. Then $200 Billion mission creep.

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To say “let’s just isolate the elderly”is overly simplistic. There are hundreds of thousands of kiwis with co-morbidities, in my young family alone 3/4 have a condition considered high risk. What are we to do, stay isolated from the community?

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i am guessing you have no idea at all about how bloody hard those of us who provide those services - and other community healthcare are already working to buffer our elderly and vulnerable. Massive precautions are taken - all visitors are temp tested / registers kept / asked about their health - and have been since before the FIRST Lockdown- you cannot simply isolate as there are over 100,000 people working in this field - who have to go home to their own families/ whanau and children -

Just because tehemortality rate is high - and the spread of infection in a rest home is high -- is not to do with poor working practice - SImply put - our elderly have in general far lower immunity to any flu illness - and the shared /close proximity living environments - spreads transmission faster -

If you review our infections - hardly any were in rest homes - closer to 50 than 100 - out of 1500 identified cases - but 15 of the deaths from those homes -- we probably had more old people die from the isolation during this period missing their families - than we did the virus

And - all those staff go to work everyday into known risky environments - and keep going day in day out - please dopnt comment on things you know nothing about

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So long as they have a decent brain then I think we should wear the cost as a society (even though it is a bit cruel to raise a person who will always be excluded from so much of human experience). But for severely sub-normal brain development I don't think there is any point in keeping them alive, abort or euthanize as early as detected. Bloody hard on the parents in short term, but doing them a favour in the long term (I know someone with a 35 year old still in nappies). Keeping them alive costs the productive life of several others to support them.

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Yes, it is complicated. I know a couple in this situation as well, their daughter will always need 24/7 care (mental and physical), even after they are long gone.

While they do not regret a thing (and rightly so, they love and adore their daughter) they now see that the decision they made 30 years ago was based on the timeline of their lives not hers. They are now coming to grips with the fact that their child will be cared for, but not "loved". This realisation has been an absolutely devastating thing for them to go through.

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You do realise every day life death decisions are made by our esteemed bureaucrats; drug funding, DHB funding, police funding, roading improvements... the list goes on!

Also, what happens when society goes to war... do we not knowingly send our young to certain death - for some... it’s time we made rational decisions re COVID not chicken-little, naive, propagandised-drunk thinking!

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$1 each way that tomorrows announcement will be nationwide level 3, or North Island level 3, and South Island level 2.

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now that easy part ; the question is will they have the guts to be upfront and announce 4+ weeks of L3 .. or just another week .. and just another one after etc.

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Damn. It's going to be at least 30 once all those already infected pop out of the woodwork isn't it?

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Yes, 30+. Did I hear correctly that they are moving all positive people and family into quarantine facility?
Seems a good move. Will stop them going to church on Sunday.

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Or the coromandel Bach for the weekend

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They're already there RC, spoke to a store owner down there for work last night and he said the cars were streaming in by the dozen.

Me, me, me!

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Yep, on tuesday night when they announced the lockdown the traffic level past our place went from a trickle to a torrent as everybody took off to go panic buy flour and TP...

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Yup , i heard of one shop asking all non locals where they were from.If the answer was Auckland they were asked to leave the premises.

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To be fair this was entirely predictable - I don't understand why the government didn't have the checkpoints being set up while the announcement was being made.

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Could backfire though, no disrespect but the only way I'm being locked in a hotel room with my 6 month & 2 year old is by being dragged there kicking & screaming.

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Think of the ones that get a touch of CV and just sit at home as they don't want to go to a CV hotel.

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How many other large workplaces have been undertaking this? Fonterra have been taking all 12,000 NZ staff temperatures DAILY since the first lockdown.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12…

And not just in NZ either https://www.farmonline.com.au/story/6734239/factory-stays-ahead-of-viru…

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A bit pointless really. Fever is a symptom only about 30% of the time. Good optics though I guess.

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0.3 is better/ more helpful than 0.

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Glad I don't work for you denature, with that attitude. Hope you don't work in primary industries.

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Oh shxt.. This is how Melbourne started, they had 6 cases initially..

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From the outside looking in NZers have come across as a weird bunch post lockdown.

The praise and celebrations of how NZ dealt (but realistically was always dealing) with Covid was nothing more than blind nationalism. Most knew jack shit about viruses in general before February. The main metric to many was simply how NZ compared to other countries.

I'm not saying this applies to everyone, but theres certain groups of NZers that look like idiots right now. The same type of person you'll find in overseas pubs in an ABs jersey talking down to everyone.

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"From the outside looking in NZers have come across as a weird bunch post lockdown."
Its always been the case....remember when reporters would collar people straight off the plane with "what do you think of nz?"...now its the weekly herald article...."the world loves us!"...gag.

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Here is a worked example

https://mobile.twitter.com/RealMarkLatham/status/1293725877021241345

Well done Jacinda Ardern:
Destroyed the New Zealand economy to end up with the virus anyway.

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MarkL is an idiot, for a start he got no backbone!

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Destroyed the New Zealand economy

Yeah, it's wrecked. How do people still afford food, shoes or clothes?
Why can't we have a strong resilient economy like ________??? (you can fill in the blank, I'm struggling).

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Coming from a right wing shock jock, has he delved into how the Aussie economy is doing? It’s in the crapper compared to ours.

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It's weird and its an inferiority complex. And 'Islander Mentality'.

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Earlier today Reserve Bank of New Zealand Deputy Governor Bascand speaking
"Says resurgence of virus in New Zealand is a big risk to its outlook
says RBNZ would have to consider more monetary stimulus if there are periods of resurgence and longer lockdowns
says banks are resilient and have good strength to get us through this period for now
RBNZ will probably do a combination of negative interest rates and 'funding for lending' programme if more stimulus needed beyond the QE extension announced on Wednesday
says sees a fairly soft, low growth world for a period of time."
So given the past 24 hrs, more more more monetary stimulus on its way

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.

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Nah, the disgusting amount of debt we have is the risk. Locking down just brings that to the fore.

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First family, Taupo who knew, Gerry looks right.

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Slowly but surely the truth is coming out , its just a pity that we are not told the absolute truth right at the beginning , so we dont see wild fake -news stories on social media

I commented a few days ago that there was something afoot and this Government is not being honest with us .

This half truth nonsense leads to wild speculation and rumours

Then Social Media gets a cock-eyed story , and it goes viral .

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Some people knew something which the general public should have been privy to as well.. We all need to be told the truth, judging by the physical changes noticed at publicly frequented places etc for at least the last 2 weeks, as to what was cooking for a few weeks now.

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jacinda and blomfeild both stood there today and told untruths, people at the airport are not health checked before they start shift, they are not wearing PPE when around planes or bags or freight, there has been no targeted testing only if you get flu symptoms you are sent to your local GP.
and when the reporter that started to ask the right question they accepted the answer and backed off, that pissed me off.
those of us that either work at the borders or have family that work there know the truth they are keeping from the public.
it was just a matter of time now they have been caught short, so today on the airport oaks they set up testing BIT LATE
me and my workmates were all texting during todays speech about the rubbish they were spouting about what is happening on the airport precinct, our ears were hearing one thing and what we do during the day and our eyes tell us the truth

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Anyone with teenagers, watches those two and comes away with a great feeling of unease.

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If you know the "truth" did you bring it up with any media outlets? I'm sure they would have been very interested. People who knew the gaping holes that existed and said nothing are as culpable as this inept pack of wannabe's we currently call a Govt.

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actually, even on this site, since at least March, nearly anyone who suggested anything different from the narrative was shot down, the discussion could not even be had. This is only just starting to change, but even now there's lots of it.

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Our limp dick media are in Jacindamania's thrall that's why! Just look at the non-reporting of the Police failures regarding the ChCh terrorist, one outlet published one article OVER A YEAR after they were informed of the failures and subsequent cover up. Did that raise an uproar? did anyone dig any deeper or follow up? Anyone here even give a sh*t? That's why "bring it up with any media outlets" is an utter waste of time. The 'team of 5 million' is Labouring (see what I did there?) under the same delusions as Germans were circa 1938...

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Jacinda has lied few times and avoided honest and direct responses many other times during this crisis. I would never forget when she said that the front line doctors were refusing testing for COVID 19, when it was the protocol from MoH (as is always the case, as NZ health services are publicly funded and the MoH has a protocol for everything a GP does). But unfortunately, justified hate of National (given their own set of lies and avoidance and diversion etc) drives people to such an extreme that they easily overlook it. I think people forget that the government is here to serve them, politicians are agents of the public, it is the public role to hold them accountable and honest not to cheer for them and liking them.

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I am picking it was a realisation that the security guards been used at isolation facilities, were doing multiple jobs, and were therefore at a greater risk of spreading covid if they caught it off a incoming . Hence , Robinson' announcement of ensuring a living wage for Security guards.
I can't see how they could have known about this outbreak , nor been stupid enough to try and cover it up .

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So if Robinson thinks paying Sec. Guards more is going to stop them moonlighting then we are truly in deep doodoo. MoH should have fired the Company and brought in military way faster. It's ok though, Cindy will give everyone a big smile and a hug. What a freakn joke of a parliament we have hired

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by Fritz | 12th Aug 20, 7:32pm
Again, it's a handful of cases. Again, if there's 20 cases and all or many of them are Pasifica from South Auckland, then there might be something.
Until then it's unscientific and borderline racist.
Want to revisit this comment fritz??

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Why should I revisit it Hook? Many of the newly infected are workmates, do we know if they are Pasifica?
If they are, they could have easily not been Pacifica.
And also so what if they are Pasifica? Maybe that just reflects that many people who work in the most covid-risky roles are Pasifica. Rather than Pasifica being irresponsible as you may have been suggesting.

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So having flu like symptoms for 5-7 days without C19 testing isn't irresponsible? Going to work with said symptoms isn't irresponsible? Travelling half way down the country whilst symptomatic isn't irresponsible? It's already public info there are at least 5000 unrecorded PI overstayers in the Sth Auckland area, all of whom won't want to be identified so are reluctant to be tested. The news footage of Sec Guards falling asleep because they were moonlighting isn't fake news buddy - it's fact. Take your "pixie dust" glasses off and admit there is a major problem brewing.
Telling the media that all positive cases and their close contacts will be isolated in MIQFs just adds to the reluctance/refusal to be tested. Bloomfield has already stated there was "a high level of reluctance to comply with the MI directive by the current cases and their contacts"

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I am not going to even grace your clearly bigoted view with anything more. Slurring a whole race of people with the irresponsible behaviour of one person is my definition of racist. Have a good night.

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Cases on North Shore now. Caucasian / Asian territory.
You can shove your racism up your backside.

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Catching covid off a surface is not easy. No one is licking the suitcases as they come off the plane. It is just a red herring to distract and confuse with a scenario that no one saw coming and can't be blamed for.
The more obvious answer is in this report.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300075002/leaked-co…
MOH has had this report for a while. As a result, they knew there was a hole in the plan. It was only a matter of time before a worker in managed isolation was infected by a guest in managed isolation. Because they were not testing the workers frequently or at all. They had the ability to spread it to their close contacts before becoming symptomatic. If they became symptomatic at all.MOH was just waiting and hoping. While pushing out the increased messaging around masks etc. Because they knew they had left a gaping hole for the virus to pass-through.

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That's the trouble nowadays. Unless the report is peer reviewed and comes from a reputable source it is discounted or ignored. All the publically known breaches in MIQF were just a lapse in straight out common sense. Unfortunately the country as a whole will pay the price of this aversion to just using the grey matter and making a call, regardless of legality. All decision makers are too scared to call the shots for fear of litigation or career repercussions and thus we find ourselves at the nexus of another hi level lockdown and ensuing economic damage. Hope all the NZF voters in 2017 are feeling happy with themselves because the blame lies squarely at their feet.

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Agreed if they were serious about elimination they should have just done a complete boarder shut down. The quaritine system was always the Achilles heal of our "elimination" strategy. Now the whole country gets level 3/4 for the next 6 weeks because those in charge didn't like the idea politically of shutting the boarders to NZ citizens.

Further their is a rumor hinted by Winston Peter's himself that the source of the current outbreak was someone breaking into quaritine to see their lover!?

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we dont wear gloves or masks when handling freight, its only a 3 hour flight from melbourne , so you have someone up in bulkhold loading cargo sneezing all over the place less than 4 hours later you have someone new up there grabbing the cargo out, and when the plane flys that area is not temp controlled so is very very cold when up at 20000 feet.
then we have chilled seafood coming in all the time packed with dry ice that is quickly unloaded again by hand into the back of chiller trucks to go off to importers, again you dont wear gloves to slippery.
there is so many ways for this to come in they do not focus on
from davids arcticle this morning, it is possible to come in on sufaces especially via airfreight the time is not long it has to survive on a surface
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3096934/coronavirus-fou…
i can tell you MPI were more rigorous turning auckland airport into a bubble when we had gypsy mouth than counties manukau DHB turning the auckland airport prescient into a bubble for covid, it should be permanently in level 2 with compulsory masks and gloves, temp checked until we find the vaccine to keep the rest of auckland safe.
and you have many workers and companies on the airport knew this was going to happen and like i said previously we planned for the second wave a couple of weeks ago

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personally i dont think it was caught from a surface to armicold knowing the gear you wear when working in a coldstore (from experience)
i think it is from human to human transfer from either an airport worker, baggage handling, plane cleaner, food staff, duty free shop staff yes they are open for people transferring from lax to australia, freight staff, there are many many people that come within close proximty of likely infected people and are not monitored.
it should be less likely that a worker at a quarantine facility is the source as they are monitored, in saying that if it got out weeks ago then maybe as we still had bus drivers transporting people then driving other buses, and like i have said previously the guards at the entrance to jet park only starting wearing masks two weeks ago, ( i walk past to work every day so see as things have been tightened over time)

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Meanwhile in Queenstown Aucklanders who have flown in with symptoms are now lining up in Qtown to get tested! Why oh why, are Aucklanders allowed to come down here for skiing holidays at this time?
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/queenstown/auckland-arrivals-symptoms-boo…

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They didn't drive down SH1 and flew. Obviously the virus isn't transmitted or carried via passenger aircraft. Only the people leaving Auckland by vehicle access are a transmission risk, and Cindy gave everyone in Auckland a 13 hour heads up to scarper knowing none of those 1000s were C19 free.
To be honest I don't think even a "B" grade movie producer could have scripted anything more farcical.

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B grade movie.

https://youtu.be/8toaz_9BHrY
Clueless

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haha, the current response/handling makes that look like an "A" grade blockbuster.

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not just queenstown, many aucklanders headed out of town before lockdown, so if they wanted to contain in the auckland region they may have missed that, they should have set up the road blocks midnight wednesday night to stop those escaping

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The funny thing is that if at this very moment everything was exactly as is and as happened except for the name of the government (i.e. they were called National), the arguments in the comment section will completely switch 180 degrees. People who defend, would have attacked the totality of what they are defending now and vice versa.

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A good portion of Nat supports are business people. They aren't that good at accepting failures, so by far rew would be sticking up for National if it was vice versa..

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I don't think so. The vast bulk of people are smart enough to ignore the party and just question incompetence. Yes there are a few "team" players who may be louder than others, but that goes both ways.

The simple answer is that every single MP in Parliament is an incompetent hack. It's just Labour's turn in the spotlight.

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Thanks for a great article again Jenée. You have an excellent understanding of the medical issues.

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Newshub "just one week before our current community outbreak, 63.5 percent of all border and hotel isolation workers in Auckland had never been tested for COVID-19."

FFS how can anyone vote for this bunch of Muppets, not a brain cell amongst them. This lockdown is going to cost billions all because even with 4 months and national focus on the problem they are too lazy or thick to sort out the details of proper quarantining administration.

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the lack of testing or health checks for airport workers has been known for ages, the local DHB deemed it unnecessary unless they showed symptoms, they are just concentrating on the passengers, all a reporter has to do is head to the airport and ask a few workers what happens inside, they have not learned the lessons from last time, they would be shocked
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300030203/coronavir…
"Ministry of Health staff haven't confirmed where exactly Tofiga contracted the virus, but his family believe it's likely that he got it at Auckland's International airport where he works."

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The team of 5 million is so paranoid. Unbelievable.

This makes the team of 1 million think thrice about buying a crib here.

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