DOORKNOCKING

WELLINGTON: After resorting to knocking on doors, contact tracers last night had just one Papatoetoe High School pupil left to track down and test for Covid19.

The 10day delay to reach the final handful of pupils was called ‘‘frustrating’’ by Covid19 Minister Chris Hipkins.

Contact tracers last week called the pupils, their families and sent texts and emails in attempts to get hold of everyone and ensure they had tests following the Valentine’s Day outbreak at the school.

By the end of the week more than 98% of the school’s pupils and staff had been contacted and tested.

Authorities struggled to track down a small number and took to doorknocking on Monday.

Some pupils spoke no English. Others did not have phones.

By last night it was understood to be down to just one pupil who had not been tested.

One of the pupils who could not be reached went on to test positive on Tuesday. Later that day, two of their siblings also tested positive.

One of those new cases worked two shifts at Kmart’s Botany store, folding up clothes, greeting customers at the entry and manning the clickandcollect counter in the evenings on February 19 and 20.

The store’s 300 staff are deemed close contacts and have been told to isolate and get tested, while the 870 shoppers identified as being there during the teen’s shifts are ‘‘casual plus’’.

They have also been told to stay home for the full 14 days and get two tests out of the need to be ‘‘especially cautious’’.

No new community cases were discovered so noone was added yesterday to the 11strong

Valentine’s Day cluster.

Directorgeneral of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the key thing was ensuring pupils were isolating because they could not return to school without a negative result.

University of Otago epidemiologist Prof Michael Baker said being able to contact and test 98% of the school’s pupils and staff within a week was an example of the system ‘‘working well’’.

The ‘‘gold standard’’ of contact tracing identified in Dr Ayesha Verrall’s report last year was finding 80% of a case’s contacts within three days.

Mr Hipkins said they were relying on people ‘‘doing the right thing’’ when asked how they were ensuring compliance beyond the daily symptom check phone calls.

Mr Hipkins and Dr Bloomfield said they were still confident with having Auckland at Alert Level 1 but if more cases cropped up with no clear transmission path, that could predicate a changing of alert level status. — The New Zealand Herald