There are 49 new cases of COVID-19 to report. All of these are in Auckland.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said “obviously, that’s a further decline on yesterday’s daily case number, four fewer, and is our lowest number of cases in six days.”
“It does provide a further reassuring indication that our public health measures are rapidly slowing the spread of the virus. Of note, 66% of new cases reported yesterday were household contacts of an existing case rather than from exposures in the community. And of today’s cases, 77% did not create any exposure, implying that they have either been isolating since lockdown started or since being identified as a contact, thus reducing potential new chains of transmission.”
“Of the cases we reported yesterday, only 23% are considered to have been infectious in the community compared with 30% of the day before and 35% the day before that.”
“Based on updated modeling, the reproduction rate of the virus in this outbreak is now looking like it is remaining under one, which means cases will continue to decline and we are successfully breaking chains of transmission.”
Of the current community cases, 33 cases are in hospital – 25 are in a stable condition on a ward and eight cases are in a stable condition in ICU. Two cases are in North Shore Hospital, 18 are in Middlemore Hospital, 12 are in Auckland City Hospital, and one is in Wellington Regional Hospital.
“It’s also sobering that of the current Auckland outbreak, six cases are under the age of 1. All this information reinforces the importance of us doing everything we can to stamp out the virus.”
Wastewater
There are no unexpected results to report today.
Following detection in samples collected from the Christchurch wastewater treatment facility on 21, 23 and 25 August (consistent with known cases in MIQ facilities), additional sampling from Christchurch locations was undertaken.
COVID-19 was not detected in wastewater grab samples collected from seven pump station sites on 26 and 29 August 2021.
Processing of samples collected on 30 August is in progress. This includes samples collected from the Wastewater Testing Plant. The results of these are expected tomorrow.
Contact tracing
As of 9am today, 34,413 individual contacts have been identified and around 89% have had a test.
Locations of interest
Additional locations of interest continue to be identified. As of 9am today, there were 389 locations of interest.
