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No new community cases of Covid, half of Papatoetoe students test negative

Author
Jason Walls, NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Wed, 24 Feb 2021, 1:18PM

No new community cases of Covid, half of Papatoetoe students test negative

Author
Jason Walls, NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Wed, 24 Feb 2021, 1:18PM

There are no new community Covid-19 cases in New Zaealnd, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said.

Half of the Papatoetoe High School students have been re-tested - all negative so far.

Director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield said today it's "business as usual" with no community cases and there was no evidence that would lead him to advise Cabinet to raise alert levels.

But there are two in managed isolation.

Bloomfield said yesterday's news of new cases was "unsettling" but the Government's contact tracing system was working well.

There are 11 community cases in New Zealand now - all at the Jet Park MIQ and all share "very close" genome sequencing.

There were more than 600 people tested at Papatoetoe High School yesterday and there were 300 tested so far today.

He directed people with questions to the Ministry of Health website, where the locations of interest are listed.

He said officials were "actively monitoring" the variants of the Covid strain and the unusual symptoms like muscle aches and tiredness rather than respiratory symptoms.

All waste water testing has come back negative so far, apart from the pipes at the Jet Park, as expected.

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