Ministry of Health Covid-19 update
July 13, 2020

Today there are no new cases of Covid-19 to report in managed isolation facilities in New Zealand.

It has been 73 days since the last case of Covid-19 was acquired locally from an unknown source.

This means our total number of confirmed cases remains at 1194, which is the number we report to the World Health Organization.

There are no new recovered cases today, which means the total number of active cases is 25.

There is no one in New Zealand receiving hospital-level care for Covid-19.

Implementing the Covid-19 testing strategy
“There are three key groups now being tested,” says Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

“First, all returnees are tested at around days 3 and 12 of their stay in managed isolation and at any time if they are symptomatic.

“The mandatory 14-day stay in managed isolation or quarantine is the key part of our border security, and the testing of returnees on or around days 3 and 12 provides additional reassurance.

“Second, we continue testing people with cold or flu-like symptoms as part of our ongoing community testing and surveillance for the virus, and on the advice of the clinician.

“The third group is people working in MIQ facilities and at the border, and air crew.

“At the end of last week (week of 6-12 July) we began testing staff in managed isolation and quarantine facilities. This includes testing hotel staff, NZ Defence Force personnel, NZ Police, Aviation Security and Health staff.

“This week testing expands to include public-facing border workers and air crew who do not have symptoms for surveillance purposes,” says Dr Bloomfield.

“This surveillance testing began at managed isolation and quarantine facilities as this group have the most sustained contact with returnees.”

Testing numbers
Yesterday our laboratories completed 1043 tests, reflecting a common weekend pattern of a lower number of tests.

This brings the total number of tests completed to date to 429,643.

NZ Covid Tracer
NZ Covid Tracer has now recorded 594,000 registrations.

The number of posters created is 77,564 and the number of poster scans is 1,409,277.