Following yesterday’s news of four new cases of COVID-19 due to community transmission in Auckland, director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield delivered an update this afternoon (Wednesday August 12). 

Four additional probable cases have been identified, Ashley said.

These individuals all had links to the cases identified yesterday. 

“Two are work colleagues and two are another related household that one of the cases had stayed at the preceding week,” Ashley said.

All the new probable cases are in self isolation and are awaiting test results. 

Additionally, there is one new case of COVID-19 in managed isolation facilities today. 

The woman, in her fifties, arrived in New Zealand from Islamabad via Dubai on August 7. 

This means there are 22 active cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand, and none of them require hospital level care. 

More than 4,000 tests were completed yesterday which has bumped the number of tests processed in New Zealand to date “past the half a million mark,” Ashley said. 

The source of the new cases of community transmission in New Zealand remains unknown.

Two of the Auckland cases identified yesterday had travelled to Rotorua over the weekend August 8-11 but no one was believed to be considered a close contact of those cases while they were in Rotorua. 

Still, testing stations are available in Rotorua as well as Auckland, where more stringent alert level three measures are in place, while the rest of the country is in alert level two. 

“We know how to beat this but we also know we don’t have to look far to see what it can mean if we don’t get on top of it,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said of the emerging situation. “We have a plan and now is the time to follow it.”

PHOTO: Supplied