There are twenty new cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand today (Wednesday April 15). 

Director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said six of these are confirmed cases and 14 are probable. The new combined total number of COVID-19 cases is 1,386, he said.

The vast majority of new cases are connected to clusters, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said. “Of the 20 new cases announced today I believe 19 are linked to clusters.”

Unlike yesterday, when the deaths jumped from five to nine, there are no further deaths reported today, but three of the 13 people in hospital today are in ICU and two of those (in Dunedin and North Shore hospitals) are in a critical condition. 

“We now have 728 reported cases of people who have recovered from COVID-19 infection,” Ashley said. 

This is a jump in recovered cases by 100 overnight.

Ashley said there was a new significant cluster (defined as having ten or more associated cases) in New Zealand today, taking the number of significant clusters to 16.

“The new cluster is in Auckland, and again is connected to an aged residential care facility.”

Ashley did not name the facility, but he said it was working closely with the district health board to contain the spread “as our other aged residential care facilities do.”

“It’s not an outbreak that is confined to that facility - it has some people inside the facility and some in the community,” he said.

The country’s fifteenth significant cluster was first reported yesterday, and the facility has now been named: it is the St Margaret's Hospital and Rest Home in Te Atatu, Auckland.  

There are 115 health workers with COVID-19, making up eight per cent of total cases, Ashley said. Only five of these health workers were confirmed to have been infected by people they were caring for, with the rest linked to overseas travel and confirmed cases. For another five, the source of infection has not yet been identified. 

PHOTO: Supplied