Covid 19 coronavirus: Ministry of Health to provide update on new cases

The Grand Mercure in downtown Auckland is under investigation following possibility of a transmission within the facility. Photo / Supplied

The Ministry of Health is set to reveal an update on today’s new Covid-19 cases.

The ministry will release a statement around 1pm.

Health officials said yesterday the results from genome sequencing show a link between two infected returnees at Auckland’s Grand Mercure MIQ facility and an investigation into the source of the infection is underway.

The returnees were staying in separate rooms on different floors. They arrived on separate flights within two days of each other. At this stage, no other cases within the facility have been found linked to these two cases but the investigation continues.

Some 5000 Covid-19 vaccination doses are expected to be administered across the North Island this weekend including at hotels and doctors clinics.

There have now been around 50,000 doses given across the country, Director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said yesterday.

Grand Mercure investigation

The Grand Mercure in downtown Auckland is under investigation following possibility of a transmission within the facility.

Hundreds of people who have completed managed isolation in the past 10 days at the Grand Mercure have been asked to get re-tested and self-isolate.

Bloomfield said efforts were underway to contact the 250 people that had left since March 10, while 190 people had been contacted as of 9am on Friday.

Head of Managed Isolation and Quarantine Brigadier Jim Bliss said the investigation would focus on off-site exercise yards. He said a person who was positive was on one such exercise outing. The busing journeys to the off-site exercise field had now been paused.

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One of the infected returnees travelled on a bus to an exercise field with others from different facilities.

Those still there face a 24 hour pause on using the bus to reach exercise areas.

Auckland’s Grand Millennium Hotel is also being probed, and Bloomfield said how a cleaner who contracted Covid-19 within the MIQ facility earlier this week was still under investigation.

The household’s contact who initially gave a weak positive has now produced a second negative Covid-19 test.

All close contacts of the cleaner have also returned negative tests.

Fourteen people have had their time in managed isolation extended for a further 14 days.