Covid 19 coronavirus: Today’s case numbers, changes at MIQs after corridor Delta spread

Kiwis are set to find out New Zealand’s latest vaccination numbers and whether any new Covid-19 cases have been discovered in managed isolation facilities or the community.

It comes after revelations this morning that Covid was spread between returnees at Auckland’s Jet Park quarantine facility when room doors were opened simultaneously for seconds during food deliveries and a health check.

An investigation has revealed the highly contagious Delta variant was spread in seconds across a corridor and changes were now underway at the 31 MIQ facilities across the country to prevent synchronous door opening.

With the country finally making progress on its vaccination programme, the Ministry of Health revealed yesterday 2.5 million doses of the Pfizer jab have been put into Kiwi arms.

Of those, 1.58m were first doses, while 918,000 Kiwis have now had two doses and are fully vaccinated.

The ministry also revealed yesterday there were five new cases of Covid in the country’s MIQ facilities, taking the total of active cases in New Zealand to 44.

There remain no cases in the community.

The five new MIQ cases from yesterday are travellers from Russia, the United Kingdom and Fiji.

The Russian traveller flew via Singapore and tested positive in Auckland on day 12 of their stay.

The traveller from Britain landed in New Zealand on August 11 and tested positive on day 3. They are in an Auckland MIQ facility.

The ministry is also expected to give a further update on the Covid-19 outbreak among crew on board the Rio De La Plata container ship in Tauranga.

Yesterday it said further wastewater samples taken from Tauranga and Mt Maunganui last Wednesday returned negative results for the virus.

That follows negative results from last Monday and Tuesday.

There have been no unexpected detections to report in wastewater samples taken around the country.

Meanwhile, across the ditch, New South Wales yesterday announced 478 new community cases had been detected while eight people had died.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian subsequently all but admitted defeat against the Delta strain, claiming it was no longer possible to eliminate Covid-19 and that the goal would be to keep case numbers down, media outlet News.com.au reported.

“It’s not possible to eliminate it completely. We have to learn to live with it,” she said. “But the best chance we have to live with it freely and safely is to get the case numbers down as low as possible,” Berejiklian said.

Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland and the Northern Territory have all also recorded community cases within the last 11 days.

Meanwhile, Fiji has reported more than 800 new cases in the 48 hours up to Monday 8am.

There had also been 26 deaths, taking the toll to 394.

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