Nelson case still under investigation
The case of a Nelson supermarket worker who tested positive for coronavirus more than four weeks after travelling home from the Cook Islands is still under investigation, but health officials say there is no evidence of community transmission.
Director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield was asked at a press conference on Monday how many cases were still being investigated for possible community transmission.
He said there was an ‘‘explanation related to overseas travel from some time ago’’ for the most recent Nelson case, along with another confirmed through surveillance testing at Auckland Airport.
‘‘It is likely that the late positive test reflects the fact that these people had been infected and there were still fragments of the virus that showed up on the test but it doesn’t necessarily mean they were infectious.’’
Bloomfield said ‘‘more importantly’’ the people close to those two cases had been tested, with no further positive results.
‘‘That is what we are really looking for, around even those cases where we can’t fully explain where the infection might have occurred.’’
A Nelson woman in her 30s, an essential worker at New World in Stoke, was confirmed as the region’s first new case of Covid-19 for three weeks on April 30. Prior to that no new cases had been reported since April 9.
Bloomfield was also asked if contact tracing was underway in the Cook Islands, given the most recent Nelson case had travelled there, to mitigate any panic in the Pacific nation.
‘‘What’s not clear is whether that infection might have happened as part of the travel back from the Cooks – in fact it is very unlikely because the Cooks has not had any cases, but whether it happened in another setting during the period after that person arrived back, that is more likely.’’
Cook Islands News reported that Prime Minister Henry Puna said 1300 people had been swabbed and tested for Covid-19 in Cook Islands – and all those tests had come back negative.
Nelson Marlborough Health clinical director of public health Dr Stephen Bridgman confirmed the test results for the close contacts of the new case, including supermarket co-workers, were negative.
While the case may be travelrelated, it did not necessarily mean the case originated in the country of travel. He said travelrelated cases could also be caused by contact with an infected passenger on a flight or at an airport in transit.
Dr Bridgman said current evidence suggested there was no community transmission in the Nelson region.
This is because the woman was not in a predominantly customer-facing role at the supermarket before the positive test results came in and went into isolation at home. She wore a facemask while in the workplace and did not have a cough or sneeze.
She also remained in her bubble beyond travel as an essential worker, during the alert level 4 lockdown restrictions.
For the first time in 49 days, the Ministry of Health said there were no new cases of coronavirus on Monday.
The total number of cases remains at 1487, with 20 deaths.
Of those, 1276 cases have now recovered. On Monday, four people were in hospital around the country but none were in intensive care.
The total number of coronavirus cases in the top of the south remained at 49, with 46 of those having recovered and three still being monitored by the public health service.
Nelson has had 23 confirmed and five probable cases, while there have been 14 confirmed and seven probable cases reported in Marlborough.