New case of COVID-19 linked to Pullman Hotel; Public health risk low

Family member of North Auckland father and daughter who tested positive for COVID-19 after leaving the Pullman Hotel tests positive while isolating at home

4th Feb 21, 1:56pm by Jenée Tibshraeny

A family member of two people who were found to have COVID-19 after leaving managed isolation has contracted the virus.

The case - a North Auckland woman - had already been self-isolating at home.

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the public health risk was very low.

On January 27 it was reported the woman’s partner and toddler tested positive for COVID-19, following another Pullman Hotel leaver - a Northland woman - testing positive.

The woman returned negative test results for tests done on January 27 and 30, when she first got symptoms. She returned another negative result for a test done on February 1, before returning a positive result for a test done on February 2.

The close contacts of today’s case have already been tested and are self-isolating, as they are the same close contacts as the man and toddler.

Testing levels are still relatively hight, with 5130 tests processed yesterday.

Because no new arrivals have been sent to the Pullman Hotel in recent weeks, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said that by Saturday there will be no guests there.

He said the facility would be closed for at least a week as the CCTV system is upgraded and a deep clean is done.

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14 Comments

by Rex Pat | 4th Feb 21, 2:06pm 1612400787

So everyone already tested should get a new test if showing symptoms?

by mikekirk29 | 4th Feb 21, 2:29pm 1612402147

UK did 771k tests on January 27th.
NZ did 5000 roughly.
Those figures suggest we are not testing enough.
If you do not DO tests, you will not find cases.

by youngdumbandbroke | 4th Feb 21, 3:24pm 1612405498

Surely we would have already had a mass outbreak then if that's the case?

by Nifty1 | 4th Feb 21, 4:11pm 1612408286

If we had an outbreak, wouldn't we find out through people checking into the public health systems - i.e hospitals?

by youngdumbandbroke | 4th Feb 21, 4:13pm 1612408417

Thats what I was thinking.

by GV 27 | 5th Feb 21, 7:52am 1612464722

Eventually. But it would have to reach a critical mass - i.e. someone would have to 1) be sick enough to notice symptoms, 2) do the right thing and 3) be prepared to take the time off work to get tested. Chances are someone who may have been lax about scanning, or not have any sick leave available to them, or can't afford a $60 doctor's visit may just try and put it off - eventually they might get sick enough to warrant a trip to the doctor, but then they've been wandering around for a while. And who knows, by the time they've infected another 10 people, they might feel better and not bother. Eventually over time it is inevitable someone would get sick enough, but we only found the Americold outbreak because someone actually went to a doctor - and by then it had a head start.

by Nzdan | 4th Feb 21, 7:01pm 1612418518

Do you test people who are not symptomatic? How often should you test people? If you test someone today who is not symptomatic, it doesn't mean they won't catch Covid tomorrow....or today.

by The Person | 5th Feb 21, 9:19am 1612469993

or as this case demonstrates, it doesn't mean they didn't catch it last week.

by mikekirk29 | 4th Feb 21, 2:34pm 1612402452

By the way, as MSM are determined to paint UK as a basket case, this is what I just found on DoH site for UK:

Last 7 days, hospital admissions for CV19 down 22%
Deaths per day down 13%
Positive tests per day down 25%

And for USA today NYT reports 114,000 pos tests. 3 weeks ago it was over 300,000

Deaths in UK in May 2020 were 13% of pos tests. Today they are 4.2%
Positive tests as a % of total tests done, in May 2020 was 5.5%. In late January 2021 it is 3%

On January 27th, they did 771,710 tests and got 23,102 positives (3%)
On May 1st 2020 they did 74,142 tests and got 4,055 positive.

news NEVER says in NZ that number of tests determines how many positives you get.
YOu have to give a denominator folks for comparisons.

by Poppyc | 4th Feb 21, 3:11pm 1612404676

That's why deaths at a rate of a million is used.
Objectively the UK is terrible, be it a reflection of icu capabilities, or compromised patient groups

by realterms | 4th Feb 21, 3:38pm 1612406338

> number of tests determines how many positives you get

This is true if the disease is widespread in your population (e.g. most places). Hence the importance of positivity rate. It is almost certainly not true in NZ at the moment.

by GV 27 | 4th Feb 21, 3:58pm 1612407539

The number of tests also determines how fast you get ahead of an outbreak if one unfolds - we are great at having testing and scanning drop away until there's a scare, and then it's 10 hour waits at testing centres.

by The Person | 5th Feb 21, 9:25am 1612470353

they might be better at treating it now than at the start of the outbreak... that's really not surprising, i would expect most of the world is better at treating it now that we have so much more knowledge about it.

The fact they have so many cases per capital and thus so many deaths per capita compared to the rest of the world is what makes them a basket case.

David already uses a denominator in his comparison (deaths per million)

by IT GUY | 5th Feb 21, 11:02am 1612476179

this strain seems to have a very long incubation period