Wellington, April 22, 2020
Six new cases of Covid-19 have been reported in the past 24 hours in New Zealand, with one more death confirmed.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said that the six new cases (all confirmed cases) are related to travel or connected to existing clusters.
“The new combined total of new and probable cases in New Zealand is therefore 1451. There have now been 14 deaths from the coronavirus,” he said.
Dr Bloomfield said that the latest death was a woman in her 80s, who was a resident of the Rosewood rest home and had underlying health conditions.
“Every person we lose to Covid-19 is a tragedy and with family and friends left without their loved one, and my thoughts and those of others I’m sure are with this woman’s family today and in the coming days,” he said.
Dr Bloomfield said that 11 people are in hospital, two of those are in ICU.
The patients are in a stable condition.
Testing numbers
Dr Bloomfield said that record number of tests were carried out yesterday, with 5289 tests, bringing the total number of tests to 94,467 and that there will be testing of selected groups, including health workers and essential workers, this week, as part of the surveillance to make sure community cases were not being missed.
He said that 1036 people have recovered from the coronavirus.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that with three of the six latest cases related to overseas travel, the government would continue to quarantine people arriving in the country for 14 days in government facilities during alert level three.
“We have given no end point to that part of our response to Covid, it is an intrinsic part of our response and it is not changing because we are moving alert levels. 2403 people are in government-provided facilities. The number in quarantine is 97, with the remainder in isolation,” she said.
Breaches and prosecutions
Ms Ardern said that while 99.9% of New Zealanders were respecting the lockdown rules, there were still some who were choosing to flout the rules.
She said as at 6 pm yesterday, there have been 4128 breaches of the CDEM and Health Acts, 433 prosecutions, 3580 official warnings and 115 youth referrals.
“Each and every one of the people involved in breaches risks undoing the work of others, so again I say: Please do not travel unnecessarily or gather,” she said.
Published under a Special Agreement with www.rnz.co.nz
