MIQ worker has Omicron

Household contacts isolating in Auckland and Taupo¯ after negative Covid test results

The border worker reported as Covid-19 positive has been confirmed to have the Omicron variant by the Ministry of Health. The Auckland MIQ worker returned a positive test result as part of routine testing.

More than 50 close contacts have so far been identified.

All of the case’s seven household contacts identified have already been contacted, isolated and tested, and returned negative results.

The case and one household contact are now isolating in a MIQ facility. The remaining household contacts are isolating at locations in Auckland and Taupo¯.

A further 48 close contacts are in the process of being contacted; 15 of them have returned a negative test, including five in Taupo¯.

The worker, who was infectious from January 10, took two bus services in Auckland and visited a supermarket and four other stores in the city.

Those locations, and areas of the MIQ facility, are considered high-risk, and the Ministry of Health says anyone in Auckland with symptoms should get tested.

All the latest locations of interest can be found on the Ministry of Health’s website.

There are 25 new cases of Covid19 in the community today, and 43 in MIQ.

The new community cases are in Northland (1), Auckland (15), Bay of Plenty (3), Rotorua (2), one in Hamilton and one in Nga¯ruawa¯hia, two in Hastings and one in Wellington.

The cases at the border arrived from Australia, France, India, the UK, Fiji, the UAE, Turkey and Ireland.

There are 22 people in hospital, with two in intensive care or HDU.

It comes as the vaccine roll-out for five to 11-year-olds is set to begin today. The vaccine will be available for free at all the same places that provide the adult vaccine: parents will be able to access walk-in clinics, or use Book My Vaccine to use other health providers.

While there are no plans for a school-based immunisation programme, schools are being considered as community vaccination sites.

A parent, caregiver or legal guardian will need to accompany the child to their immunisation appointment and provide consent for them to be vaccinated.

As with adults, children need two doses of the vaccine to be fully protected, and the ministry recommends these be given at least eight weeks apart — although the interval could be safely shortened to a minimum of 21 days if needed.

Children aged under nine have made up roughly the same proportion of all Delta cases — some infants among them — since the outbreak began last year.

Otago University immunologist Dianne Sika-paotonu suggests parents simply tell their children it’s time for another vaccine — just like those they’d had before.

“It might be helpful also to point out that the vaccines they’ve been given in the past have stopped them from becoming seriously unwell, and they have kept them safe and protected,” she said.

“Pointing out that this is how vaccines in general work, by giving protection from serious illness, will be useful.”

Parents could also make it clear to their children that they’d been vaccinated too, and that all kids would be getting the same vaccine.

Sika-paotonu recommended keeping the conversation “simple and honest”. — NZ Herald, RNZ