There are no new cases of coronavirus in New Zealand today and Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says he wants to keep it that way.
It is the first time in close to six weeks that testing has not uncovered a single case across a 24 hour period.
There are no additional deaths to report and the death toll remains at 20. The total number of cases is 1487. One probable case had since been upgraded to confirmed but that does not change the total number of cases. There are four people in hospital.
“Clearly these are encouraging figures today but it is just one moment in time,”
Bloomfield said.
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But the true test will come later in the week after the incubation period which will show if there were any new cases as a result of stepping down to alert level 3.
New Zealand cannot afford to squander the hard work and the advantage we’ve “worked so hard for”, said Bloomfield.
He now needed to be certain there was no community transmission so it was important continued to follow the level 3 rules as later this week they would truly know whether there were other infections due to the incubation period of Covid-19.
It was a risk that people now get complacent and celebrate zero cases so it was “very important” people stuck to the rules and remained diligent.
It is cause for celebration and it was symbolic of the effort that everyone had put in, Bloomfield said.
“This is the first day we’ve had no new cases and we want to keep it that way.”
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Testing at Marist College
Bloomfield commended the action Marist College to offer testing to the wider school community. “I am strongly supportive of this initiative.”
Bloomfield said it was a “specific” decision made to help allow the school to open.
In other clusters, there had been “quite widespread” testing around wider nonsymptomatic contacts, particularly in outbreaks at aged care facilities.
The move to alert level 2
Numbers of cases have been falling steadily since the early days of New Zealand’s lockdown. For more than a fortnight daily case numbers have been in the single digits.
Three new cases were announced on Friday, six on Saturday and two on Sunday.
New Zealand’s success in stamping out coronavirus has been applauded by many other countries around the world which are still desperately trying to get Covid-19 under control.
