Church event linked to 58 Covid-19 cases
A total of 58 cases of Covid-19 have been linked to a church service in south Auckland’s Ma¯ngere, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has confirmed.
At a media briefing yesterday, Bloomfield said an event on August 15 at the Assemblies of God Church of Samoa is the largest sub-cluster in the current Auckland outbreak.
Bloomfield said a majority of New Zealand’s Covid-19 cases of the Delta variant are of Samoan heritage. This is largely a reflection of the ethnic makeup of the church.
He said investigations are ongoing and acknowledged the Samoan and wider Pacific community for their response to getting tested.
Bloomfield said health authorities were working with the church to get a firm number of how many people attended, but it was believed more than 500 people were at the event.
He said it was essentially an ‘‘assembly of assemblies’’ with 27 different churches involved. Some people travelled from Wellington to attend.
Bloomfield said more than 500 people, including those who attended the event and their close contacts, have been tested. He said both this time and historically, the Pasifika community has been very good at responding to the call to test and isolate.
Pacific health expert Dr Colin Tukuitonga, who is leading the health team for the Pacific church cluster, said the large number of cases associated with the church should be expected.
‘‘It is a reflection of origin and the church and how transmissible this Delta variant is,’’ Tukuitonga said.
He said he wasn’t sure how many people who attended the event were vaccinated, but there was a strong push to get those vaccination numbers, and Pacific vaccination rates more broadly, up.
He said the possible link of transmission to the church is from the Crowne Plaza managed isolation facility, and not from the first case detected in the current outbreak, who is from Devonport.
Tukuitonga said he was aware of the racist abuse the Pacific church and its members would receive, as was the case when south Auckland was the centre of an outbreak in 2020.
Bloomfield announced 41 new cases yesterday, 38 in Auckland and three in Wellington. New Zealand has a total of 148 cases, 137 of which are in Auckland and 11 in Wellington.
A baby under the age of one has been infected with the Delta variant of Covid-19 as vaccines for young children remain months away.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield told the health select committee yesterday that the infected infant was one of the first 40 cases in the Auckland cluster, of which half were under the age of 20. He had previously said more than half of the cases were Pasifika people and at least one was Ma¯ori.
Children as young as 12 can get the Pfizer vaccine with their parents and trials were now under way on younger children.
A staff member at the Novotel Ellerslie managed isolation facility has tested positive for Covid-19 after visiting a location of interest.
The staffer was fully vaccinated, said Brigadier Rose King, joint head of MIQ, in a statement. The person tested positive on Monday, August 23, and had not been at work since August 18.
CCTV has identified close contacts in the work place, who are now isolating and getting tested.
‘‘This case is being investigated to determine how the worker may have contracted the virus, and whether it was passed on to anyone,’’ King said. ‘‘There is currently no reason to think they are linked to the possible line of transmission from MIQ to the community.’’
The Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) is conducting interviews to identify any close contacts among other staff members. Guests at the hotel were told about the positive case via a letter from King.