Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says there are 15 community Covid-19 cases to report on Thursday.
Bloomfield says most are household contacts, with three as yet unlinked to prior cases. All 15 are in Auckland.
He says Wednesday's one unlinked case has now been linked to a previous case. Ten, or 43%, of Wednesday’s cases had exposure events. Mt Wellington has been added as a suburb of interest.
More than 8,000 tests were conducted in Auckland on Wednesday.
There were 49,667 vaccinations administered on Wednesday, with 24,339 first doses, and 25,338 second doses.
There are 15 people in hospital with Covid-19, with three in intensive care. Of 1123 cases in the current outbreak, 861 people have now recovered.
See details on the new modelling from Shaun Hendy and co here.
Here's the Ministry of Health's press release.
15 community cases of COVID-19; two cases at the border; more than 49,000 vaccines yesterday
23 September
| Cases | |
| Number of new community cases | 15 (3 are currently unlinked, 2 are contacts of cases and 10 are household contacts). |
| Number of new cases identified at the border | Two (one historical) |
| Location of new cases | Auckland |
| Location of community cases (total) | Auckland (including 4 cases in Upper Hauraki) 1,106 (844 of whom have recovered); Wellington 17 (all of whom have recovered); |
| Number of community cases (total) | 1,123 (in current community outbreak) |
| Cases infectious in the community | 10 (43%) of yesterday’s cases have exposure events |
| Cases in isolation throughout the period they were infectious | 13 (57%) of yesterday’s cases |
| Cases epidemiologically linked | 12 of today’s cases |
| Cases to be epidemiologically linked | 3 of today’s cases |
| Cases epidemiologically linked (total) | 1,088 (in current cluster) (14 unlinked from past fortnight) |
| Number of sub-clusters | Ten epidemiologically linked subclusters. Of these, two are active, six are contained and two are dormant. There are 13 epidemiologically unlinked subclusters. Of these, four are active, two are contained and seven are dormant |
| Cases in hospital | 15 (total): North Shore (1): Auckland (4); Middlemore (10). |
| Cases in ICU or HDU | Three |
| Confirmed cases (total) | 3779 since pandemic began |
| Historical cases, since 1 Jan 2021 (total) | 153 out of 1,961 since 1 Jan 2021 |
| Contacts | |
| Number of active contacts being managed (total) | 1,137 |
| Percentage who have received an outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements) | 90% |
| Percentage with at least one test result | 89% |
| Locations of interest | |
| Locations of interest (total) | 132 (as at 10am 21 September) |
| Tests | |
| Number of tests (total) | 3,287,055 |
| Total number of laboratory tests processed (last 24 hours) | 19,194 |
| Tests rolling average (last 7 days) | 13,740 |
| Swabs taken in Auckland (last 24 hours) | 8370 |
| Testing centres in Auckland | 22 |
| Wastewater | |
| Wastewater detections | No unexpected detections in ESR’s latest testing |
| COVID-19 vaccine update | |
| Vaccines administered to date (total) | 4,867,818: 1st doses: 3,171,029; 2nd doses: 1,696,789 |
| Vaccines administered yesterday (total) | 49,667: 1st doses: 24,339; 2nd doses: 25,338 |
| Māori | 1st doses: 301,435; 2nd doses: 148,527 |
| Pacific Peoples | 1st doses: 194,609; 2nd doses: 103,649 |
| NZ COVID-19 tracer | |
| Registered users (total) | 3,245,226 |
| Poster scans (total) | 378,191,688 |
| Manual diary entries (total) | 16,852,091 |
| Poster scans in 24 hours to midday yesterday | 2,510,433 |
New cases identified at the border
| Arrival date | From | Via | Positive test day/reason | Managed isolation/quarantine location |
| 21 September | Russia | United Arab Emirates | Day 0 / Routine | Auckland |
Historical cases identified at the border
| Arrival date | From | Via | Positive test day/reason | Managed isolation/quarantine location |
| 6 September | Thailand | Singapore | Day 12 / routine | Auckland |
35 Comments
The government doesn't get on top of it, we the people get on top of it or don't get on top of it.
If you want the government to get on top of it you'll also be happy with state rule and all that comes with it, which given your comment I'd imagine you wouldn't be.
You raise a very valid point. The government has successfully protected NZ to the extent that deaths incurred from Covid are really minimal by international comparison. At some point covid will enter the community and those expecting protection now from vaccination will find that to be unpredictable. That is simply because each individual is of different immune systems, age, physical condition, age, pre-existing weaknesses, on and on. Because of the long protected state to date, and a natural complacency that is attached, when covid then begins to take its toll I suggest New Zealanders in general are ill-prepared for the actual impact of that. It was going to have to happen sooner or later. The vaccine simply will not make everybody bullet proof.
Depends what you mean by "lockdown". I think L4 is done for good, and L3's days are numbered. Lots of talk about "sustainable" public health measures, which clearly neither of those are.
My personal reckon is that they're gearing up to get close to 90% first doses (in AKL), declare victory, and go to level 2.
90% in Auckland maybe, but strong overtures given to the need for vaccine rates to be high across all demographics and ethnicities before this could happen. So at what point do you stop people living their lives because pockets of the community have refused to engage with a high profile vaccination program?
Any longer than that and I think most people will have totally reverted to L2 anyway. Myself and my family and extended family are all fully jabbed, it seems like madness that we could be forced to spend longer and longer unable to see each other because other people in the community have drunk the flavour-aid when it comes to imported anti-vaxx nonsense.
I took it as realisation people are over lockdowns and are getting vaccinated as much to avoid them as to avoid covid. So once vax rate is high lockdown compliance could fall apart, and we then need to accept the deaths that will occur. If 100 or so people die each week from covid that'll be news for a few weeks, then they'll just be numbers among the 35000 who die each year anyway. A reasonable number of the covid deaths being among those whose number was up anyway.
Regulating the strain on the health system with non-lockdown measures becomes the mainstay.
Even so, we need to avoid so many constraints that stop younger people meeting up and ultimately creating more young people, otherwise the population dies off anyway.
I should be able to squeeze a few more runs and then fade away, possibly due to covids but I'm fully vaccinated now and have what i classify as minor co-morbidity. Should be Ok for those few extra runs. If other oldies kick the bucket for whatever reason I'm not really concerned.
Why are they talking about vaccines as if it's some new magic bullet they just discovered?
My only thought is about these boosters - much as I support vaccines NOW to combat and minimise Covid-19, I'm not convinced the boosters aren't just cash cows for the vaccine makers...
Commentor 1: Go hard and go early. Nuke Auckland!
Commentor 2: Everyone follow the official advice, get the jab and trust Government to react as required to caseload.
Commentor 3: Con't control Covid-19, let her rip and hire a digger for the mass graves. The strongest will survive.
Commentor 4: I have a bottle of horse de-wormer and various healing crystals, I'm never getting vaccinated because it's all lies.
Me: I wonder why companies build rockets instead of hydrogen balloons to take people on scenic near-space flights and Zero G experiences?
It's time to ask the question: What vaccination % do we need to hit before Auckland can come down to L2 like the rest of the country. No other fluff, just the number.
And then, to follow up: When will that happen according to your modelling, and what happens if it doesn't happen.
I don't follow the stats but looking at the above what is noticeably absent is current stock levels, which vaccine, expected deliveries time table, quantities and which ones.
Anyone found them buried in a govt website somewhere?
I think 2nd vaccine is still pushed out to six weeks from 1st. Led to believe this is too long.
It's time to let it rip and get on with it folks. All the high risk NZers have either been vaccinated or had the chance to. What more can we do. Open the borders. Open everything up. Anything less isn't fair to the hard working NZers and delaying the inevitable...
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