Coronavirus cases monitored

The Ministry of Health defines a recovered case as one where at least 10 days have passed since they first had symptoms and they have remained symptom-free for at least 48 hours.

Nelson’s active case in Stoke was the region’s first new case of Covid-19 for three weeks and was confirmed on April 30. Before that no new cases had been reported since April 9.

The woman returned to Nelson on March 26 from the Cook Islands.

Director-general of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said on Monday it was ‘‘very unlikely’’ the woman caught the virus in the Cook Islands as they had not had any cases. It was more likely she had contracted it in another setting since arriving back in New Zealand.

The woman was not in a customerfacing role at New World, but worked in the Stoke store on three separate occasions before going into isolation, mostly outside opening hours.

The Nelson Marlborough Public Health Service was still investigating that case. Bridgman said it was hoped the investigation would determine the source of the infection.

Test results for all close contacts so far, including supermarket co-workers, have been negative.

He said current evidence suggested there was no community transmission in the Nelson region.

Yesterday, one new confirmed case of Covid-19 was announced nationally, bringing New Zealand’s total number of cases to 1489. This was made up of 1139 confirmed cases and 350 probable cases.

The new case was a household contact of previously confirmed cases linked to the Matamata cluster.

The Ministry of Health said 1332 people, 89 per cent of all cases, were reported as having recovered.

Two people were in hospital in Auckland. Neither were in intensive care.

On Wednesday, laboratories completed 7323 tests, bringing the total number of tests completed in New Zealand to date to 168,023.