1 New Case Of COVID-19

There is one new case of COVID-19 to report in managed isolation in New Zealand today.

It has been 102 days since the last case of COVID-19 was acquired locally from an unknown source.

Today’s case is a man in his 20s who arrived in New Zealand on July 30 from Melbourne.

He has been in managed isolation at the Grand Millennium and tested negative for COVID-19 around day 3 of his stay. He has tested positive around day 12 of his stay and has been transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility.

This case brings our total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 to 1,220, which is the number we report to the World Health Organization.

There are 22 active cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand, all in managed isolation or quarantine facilities. None of those people are receiving hospital-level care.

Yesterday our laboratories processed 1,874 tests for COVID-19, bringing the total completed to date to 498,480. There were 522 swabs taken in managed isolation and quarantine yesterday.

Flu vaccination campaign

We have this year distributed a record amount of influenza vaccine - 1.77 million doses to date.

This is particularly pleasing given the programme faced particular challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic which increased demand, disrupted international supply chains and impacted on distribution nationally.

It is very satisfying that more people have been vaccinated than ever before, and there remains vaccine available now for anyone wishing to be vaccinated, and it is still worthwhile doing.

There were temporary supply disruptions during the peak influenza vaccination season.

This was a vaccine distribution issue, not an overall shortage.

We kept in regular correspondence with providers about these issues as they arose.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield today repeated his thanks to GPs and other front-line services which continued to provide health services in the challenging circumstances we were all working under.

The Ministry is already planning for a COVID-19 immunisation programme, and while there is still significant uncertainty on what a potential COVID-19 vaccine might be and how it will be delivered, work is currently underway to strengthen our immunisation system and learn from our recent experiences in managing rapid changes in demand for vaccines – including the response to last year’s measles outbreak and this year’s influenza campaign.

NZ COVID Tracer

NZ COVID Tracer has now recorded more than 648,000 registered users. There have been 87,591 posters created. There have been 2,126,059 poster scans, and 152,216 manual entries into the app. 
 

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