Coronavirus: No new community COVID-19 cases, five in managed isolation

There are no new cases of COVID-19 in the community and five in managed isolation on Thursday, the Ministry of Health revealed. 

Three of the cases in MIQ flew directly from Fiji on July 12. 

One case flew from Brazil via Qatar on July 9. The other flew from the United Kingdom via Singapore on July 13. 

Earlier, the Ministry announced 16 cases were reported on the Playa Zahara fishing vessel but they are not being counted in today's cases tally.

One previously reported case has now recovered, while another previously reported case has now been reclassified as 'under investigation'. The number of active cases in New Zealand is now 45.

Since January 1 there have been 93 historical cases, out of a total of 622 cases.

Viking Bay update 

Four crew members remain onboard the Viking Bay fishing vessel at Queens Wharf in Wellington and are continuing to receive COVID-19 testing. 

They have had their day 0 test and will be having their day 3 test today. The remaining 16 crew members are being tested while in managed isolation. 

Update on the Playa Zahara

Sixteen of the 18 crew of the Spanish-flagged shipping vessel the Playa Zahara have tested positive for COVID-19.

The swabs were taken in Port Taranaki on Tuesday after reports of a flu-like illness on board. The vessel had been at sea for three weeks prior to the reports of illness. No one from New Zealand has been on the ship during that time.

Standard Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) protocol, including the appropriate use of PPE, was used throughout the crew's testing. After the tests were taken, the ship again departed from Port Taranaki and is now on its way to Lyttelton. 

Whole genome sequencing is underway. The Ministry of Health says the public health risk from the cases is considered to be low.  

Travel from Victoria

Health officials in New Zealand are continuing to monitor the emerging situation in Melbourne amid a growing number of cases and locations of interest.

New Zealanders currently in Victoria who have concerns about Quarantine Free Travel with the Australian state are being urged to organise travel home as soon as possible.

Travel from New South Wales

Quarantine-free travel from New South Wales (NSW) remains paused and managed return flights from Sydney are in place. All travellers on these flights will have to go into managed isolation for 14 days when they arrive in New Zealand. Because of this, travellers from NSW are not required to have a pre-departure test before flying.

Travellers who have been in NSW on or after 10.30pm on June 26 are not allowed to travel back to New Zealand from other parts of Australia. Travel histories will be checked at the airport before flying.

Information about priorities for return flights from NSW and access to managed isolation facilities can be found here.

Travellers from all other parts of Australia - who haven't been in NSW since June 26 - must return a negative pre-departure test before they will be allowed into New Zealand. All travellers must complete a travel declaration.

Testing update

The total number of COVID-19 tests processed by laboratories to date is 2,380,123.

On Wednesday, 7331 tests were processed across New Zealand. The seven-day rolling average is 6787.

This includes tests processed by Waikato Laboratory between June 11 and July 14, as systems affected by the cyberattack are now restored. The data has now been included in the weekly average. 

There were 8403 tests completed in Waikato from June 11 to July 14. This represents around two-thirds of the number of tests done since the cyber attack on May 17. The outstanding test results are expected to be uploaded within the next few weeks.

For all testing locations nationwide visit the Healthpoint website.

NZ COVID Tracer

NZ COVID Tracer now has 2,896,766 registered users.  

Poster scans have reached 305,643,022 and users have created 11,915,620 manual diary entries.  

There have been 671,287 scans in the past 24 hours to midday yesterday.