More than half of total cases have recovered
More people have recovered from the novel coronavirus than are currently diagnosed with it in New Zealand.
The Government announced just 20 new probable and confirmed cases of Covid-19 yesterday, but 100 new confirmed recoveries.
That brought the total number of recoveries to 728 – more than half of the total number of probable and confirmed cases in New Zealand, which was now 1386.
Director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield said it appeared New Zealand was past its first peak but that didn’t mean it could step down its health response.
There were no new deaths announced by the Government, but Bloomfield said the ministry was investigating the case of a Southland man who died in his home while self-isolating for Covid-19.
CLUSTERS RISE TO 16
There were now 16 significant clusters – one more than on Tuesday. This new cluster is in Auckland and is connected to an aged-care facility.
Bloomfield noted that the clusters would grow by more than 20 because there were some cases that they previously knew about but hadn’t yet linked to a cluster, which they now have. ‘‘This is good news.’’
Bloomfield said the cluster linked to the aged-care facility was not confined to it and included people connected to it.
Thirteen people are in hospital, including three people in intensive care – one each in Middlemore, Dunedin and North
Shore hospitals. Two of those in ICU – in North Shore and Dunedin – are in a critical condition.
On Tuesday, after a ninth death was announced, Ardern said the deaths were a sobering reminder to stay the course.
Echoing Bloomfield’s earlier comment that New Zealand was past the peak and addressing talk of relaxing the restrictions, she said: ‘‘We are successfully over the peak but that is not the same thing as being out of the woods.’’
For the cases the Ministry of Health has details on, 48 per cent involve contact with a confirmed case within New Zealand.
About 39 per cent had a link with overseas travel, and community transmission accounted for 2 per cent.
About 2100 tests were processed on Tuesday, with a rolling seven-day average of 2761 and total tests to date of 66,499.
Bloomfield has spoken with district health board chief executives about the need to increase testing after the Easter break. DHBs were committed to increasing testing, he said.
HEALTHCARE WORKERS
Bloomfield said the ministry was working on further analysis of data involving healthcare workers and Covid-19 infection.
The observation so far was that in cases of domestic transmission involving healthcare workers, only a relatively small number of cases involved transmission from patient to worker.
There were five instances where it wasn’t clear where the infection came from and they would be investigated further.
In the majority of transmissions within healthcare settings, more staff have been infected than patients. The ministry says the analysis reinforces the way healthcare providers are working to prevent and manage infections across the sector.