Christchurch City Council’s public facilities will remain open under COVID-19 Alert Level 2 but steps will be put in place to ensure people can maintain physical distancing.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last night announced she was moving New Zealand to COVID-19 Alert Level 2 from midday Wednesday 12 August.

Auckland is being moved to COVID-19 Alert Level 3 because cases of community transmission have been detected there.

The alert level change applies, at this stage, until midnight on Friday 14 August.

Acting Chief Executive Mary Richardson says the Council’s COVID-19 Incident Management Team has been meeting regularly since lockdown and has prepared for a change in alert levels.

“Under Alert Level 2 our public facilities will remain open but we will have to manage numbers through the door to ensure physical distancing and the ability to contact trace,’’ Ms Richardson says.

“If you are planning on visiting one of our facilities over the next couple of days please be aware that some of our facilities may be operating slightly differently than normal.

“To help keep everyone safe, please stay at home if you are anyone in your house, is unwell.’’

4 cases of COVID-19 with unknown source

The Prime Minister announced four confirmed cases of COVID-19 in one family from an unknown source.

The index case is a person in their 50s who lives in South Auckland. 

They were swabbed on Monday, and the swab was processed twice. A second swab, taken yesterday confirmed the positive result. 

The person has been symptomatic for five days and was interviewed this evening by the Auckland Regional Public Health Service.

The person has no overseas travel history. 

A a statement the Ministry of Health said “as is our usual protocol we are continuing to trace close and casual contacts of this person and test them for COVID-19.”

This has included household contacts of the case who received a rapid test this evening. Three of these tests have also come back positive and three are negative. 

All close contacts of the four cases will remain in self-isolation for 14 days, regardless of their test result, and all casual contacts will remain in self-isolation until they have the results of their test. 

In addition, The Ministry of Health is working over the next few days to test all people that are working at the borders and everyone that works at a managed isolation facility. 

There will also be no barriers to anyone that has cold and flu symptoms getting tested. Testing is free. 

‘I’ve said it previously, but it’s even more relevant now, if you are offered a test, please take it’, Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said.

In Auckland the four community testing centres in Northcote, Grafton, Henderson and Wiri will be operating with more staff and extra hours. The testing centres in Auckland, Waitemata and Counties Manukau are all prepared for receiving more people. Details will be on our website tonight.

The three DHBs in Auckland are planning pop up clinics over coming days and they will publicise the locations and hours of these clinics.

“As we’ve been saying for several weeks, it was inevitable that New Zealand would get another case of community transmission.”

“As we did in the early days of this virus emerging, we need to stamp it out.”

There are things that every single New Zealander needs to do now: 

• continue stringent hand hygiene 

• sneeze and cough into your elbow. 

• if you or a family member are unwell stay home and contact Healthline or your GP about getting a test

• practice physical distancing of two meters wherever possible

• consider wearing a mask in public spaces or places where it is hard to physically distance. 

If you have any concerns please seek advice from Healthline or your GP on getting a test. 

If you have not already, please use this opportunity to download the NZ COVID Tracer app. 

This will give us your up to date contact details, so if we need to get in touch with you for contact tracing purposes, we can do so quickly. 

If you have fallen out of the habit of recording your movements as you go about your day, this case is a reminder of why it is so important. 

You can still use the manual function on the app to record where you have been recently, and scan in using QR codes going forward. 

A reminder too, for businesses – please have a QR code displayed so your customers can be traced quickly if required. 

‘Our contact tracing team will be getting in touch with anyone identified as being a contact of this case. Please be responsive if you are contacted – return the call. 

“This case is a wake-up call against any complacency that may have set in.”

‘We cannot afford to let this virus spread.

‘We have seen how quickly it can lead to a wider resurgence in communities overseas. Places that have had COVID-19 under control have seen flare-ups and gone back into a full lockdown. 

‘We are working to not let that happen here. We’ve done this before and we can do it again,’ Dr Bloomfield said.