Coronavirus cases monitored
There are three active cases of Covid-19 being monitored by the public health service in the top of the south.
Nelson Marlborough Health clinical director of public health Dr Stephen Bridgman said two of those cases were in Marlborough and the other was in Nelson. The latter was the most recently confirmed case, a woman in her 30s who is an essential worker at New World in Stoke.
All were in isolation at home. They were being contacted daily by the public health service to check their symptoms were not getting worse, to make sure they had enough support and to keep them informed of test results for close contacts.
Nelson has had 23 confirmed and five probable cases, while
Marlborough has had 14 confirmed and seven probable cases. Of the 49 cases reported in the top of the south, 46 have recovered.
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 customer-facing 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 the woman’s close contacts so far, including her supermarket coworkers, have been negative.
Bridgman said current evidence suggested there was no community transmission in the Nelson region.