New Zealand’s total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has risen to 1,437 as another six new community cases were confirmed in Auckland today (Wednesday September 9).

Director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield confirmed all six cases have epidemiological links to existing cases and link back to the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship group.

Many of the 468 people involved in the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship have been tested over the past 10 days, he said, but as new cases are still emerging in this group, the health authorities are asking all members of the congregation to be retested, even if they have no symptoms and have previously tested negative. 

Four of these new cases are linked to a sub-group, associated with a series of bereavement activities, including visits to the household of the bereaved and a funeral, Ashley said. There are 108 people associated with this group that are self-isolating and being tested. 

One of the confirmed cases reported yesterday is a student at St Dominic’s Catholic College, and, as a precaution, health authorities are arranging testing for all staff and students in the school community. 

Another case reported yesterday is a driver of the Northern Express bus service. The driver wore gloves and a mask and was distanced from passengers, Ashley said, but, as a precaution, passengers who can be traced through their bus cards will be made aware to be vigilant about developing symptoms.

There are 74 people linked to this South Auckland August community cluster who remain in the Auckland quarantine facility, which includes 58 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their household contacts.

Today there are four people in hospital with COVID-19 – two are in ICU.

With today’s six new cases and four additional recovered cases, New Zealand’s total number of active cases is 125. Of those, 43 are imported cases in quarantine facilities, and 82 are community cases.

These recent cases have shown the importance of a fast and robust contact tracing system, Ashley said.

“Our contact tracing systems will always rely on people – if you test positive for COVID-19 we need to know not only where you were, but who you were with and when.”

The Ministry of Health is releasing another update to the COVID-19 contact tracer app today to make scanning QR codes faster and easier, he said.

Ashley said it was helpful for contact tracing if people using the app added notes to their diary entries to record who they were with.

“You can either do this at the time you scan or put some time aside each evening to add notes to your diary entries,” he said.

The investigation into the case of the maintenance worker at the Auckland Rydges quarantine facility has now closed, concluding that the most likely source of infection was a surface transmission in an elevator that the worker used after a returnee from the United States who tested positive for COVID-19.

Widespread testing around the worker’s contacts returned only negative results.

PHOTO: Supplied