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Two new cases today - including a health worker at Jet Park quarantine facility

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Sun, 13 Sep 2020, 1:28PM
Photo / File
Photo / File

Two new cases today - including a health worker at Jet Park quarantine facility

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Sun, 13 Sep 2020, 1:28PM

Prevention measures and PPE use at the Jet Park Hotel are being reviewed after a worker tested positive, the first case in the five and a-half months the quarantine facility has been operating.

The worker was one of two new cases of Covid-19 reported by the Ministry of Health today. The other is an imported case in managed isolation.

The worker is a health care worker who tested negative last week, but tested positive this week in the first week of weekly routine testing of Jet Park workers.

Air Commodore Darryn Webb said the worker was tested on Friday morning, and the health care worker did not work at any site other than the Jet Park.

The MIQ team is now reviewing staffing logs, swipe card data and CCTV footage to map the person's movements in recent days.

Five household contacts connected to the health worker are in isolation at their home and are being tested today.

"This case is still being investigated to determine if the infection came from the community or from within the quarantine facility, though at this stage no obvious links to other cases in the community have been established," the ministry said.

Genome sequencing of the health worker's Covid-19 is being undertaken and results are expected tomorrow.

Protocols and procedures are now being double-checked at the facility, where there is a higher risk of infection.

"Staff at the facility regarded as close contacts have been stood down and a deep clean of staff areas at the facility has been completed," the ministry said.

"All staff at the quarantine facility are being retested over the next 48 hours. That process began last night with 48 staff tested and more are being tested today."

Webb said all Jet Park staff are being re-tested as a result of the positive case, with 48 staff tested yesterday and the remainder to be tested by the end of tomorrow.

"Any close contacts identified will be required to self-isolate and be tested," Webb said.

"Hospital grade cleaning of medical and operational staff rooms has been carried out using a Bioquell machine, which sanitises with hydrogen peroxide vapour," Webb said.

The returnee in managed isolation arrived from South Africa on September 8 and remains in quarantine in Canterbury.

There are 33 cases in the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship Church group and 15 cases in the bereavement events sub-cluster; 98 per cent of the church congregation have now been tested, as have 98 per cent of those attending the bereavement events.

There are three people in hospital with Covid-19 – one is in isolation on a ward in Auckland City Hospital. Two are in ICU, at North Shore and Waikato hospitals.
The number of active cases is now 97.

Of those, 39 are imported cases in MIQ facilities, and 58 are community cases.

Yesterday, there were 7211 tests processed.

With one day until Cabinet decides whether to ease alert level restrictions, the ministry provided an update on case numbers just after 1pm today.

Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield and Ministry for Pacific Peoples chief executive Laulu Mac Leauanae are also answering viewers' questions on Facebook at 1pm.

Despite the growing Mt Roskill church cluster, Leauanae told the Facebook Live session that the Pacific church communities had responded with "pace and speed".

There was initially some reluctance in the group to cooperate with health officials, and Leauanae said there was a lot more clarity about what contact tracing, testing and social distancing meant by the second week of the current outbreak.

Auckland is currently in alert level "2.5", with tighter restrictions than normal level 2 including a 10-per person limit on social gatherings other than funerals or tangi.

The rest of the country is at level 2.

Cabinet will tomorrow review the Covid-19 alert level situation, with any changes to be made from Wednesday at 11.59pm.

This morning Newshub reported two staff members at Waitematā District Health Board had tested positive.

One had been on leave before becoming infectious and has not returned to the DHB since. The other has been off work since late August and is part of a small, non-patient-facing team, the members of which have all returned negative results.

Yesterday the ministry reported two new cases of Covid-19 - two young girls aged between 10 and 14 years old.

One of the new cases is a pupil of Sunnyvale School in West Auckland, which will open tomorrow despite the positive case.

The Sunnyvale School pupil didn't go to school while infectious and Auckland Regional Public Health Service has not identified any close contacts.

The school is deemed safe to attend, however it will be deep cleaned as a precaution, parents, caregivers, and staff were told via Facebook.

The cases are associated with the bereavement events sub-cluster, which is linked to the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship Church group.

All members of the church congregation had been asked to be re-tested, and as of yesterday 98 per cent of them had done so.

The group is part of the wider Auckland cluster, which yesterday grew to 176, 69 of which were still active; 47 of them and some household members are in quarantine at the Jet Park Hotel.

It comes after a protest yesterday against the Government's restrictions, with a few thousand people in downtown Auckland. It was organised by Advance Party co-leaders Jami-Lee Ross and Billy Te Kahika.

There was little social distancing and few masks worn during the event.

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