/Covid 19 coronavirus: Ministry of Health reveals infection tally ahead of announcement on Australian travel bubble – NZ Herald

Covid 19 coronavirus: Ministry of Health reveals infection tally ahead of announcement on Australian travel bubble – NZ Herald

With the Government due to make a call on resuming the transtasman travel bubble, hopes are now pinned on the run of no new community cases continuing.

The Ministry of Health is due to release a statement at 1pm.

This morning the Prime Minister gave a strong indication the Government would go ahead with resuming the transtasman travel bubble with all states with the exception of New South Wales, where community Covid cases have continued to surge over recent days.

Victoria today reported no new cases in the community while Queensland reported two, including a miner who was a close contact of an infected Northern Territory worker and had travelled back home not knowing they had contracted the virus.

Cabinet is meeting today to see if the transtasman travel bubble pause, which is due to expire at midnight tomorrow, will be recommenced.

That announcement is due at 4pm during the Prime Minister’s weekly press conference.

In the meantime, all eyes are on test results from the close contacts of a Covid-infected Australian tourist who travelled to Wellington for a weekend break.

He was considered infectious while in the capital, testing positive a day after returning home to Sydney.

His partner, who travelled to New Zealand with him, tested positive for Covid at the weekend.

The ministry said 2444 people had been identified as contacts of the Australian person who visited Wellington last weekend.

Of those, 2067 had returned a negative result.

Officials said the remaining contacts were either being followed up or were awaiting a test result. A remaining eight people had been excluded from testing.

A further 58 passengers on the Qantas flight QF163 which the Australian passenger travelled on to Wellington last Saturday were all self-isolating.

Thirty-seven passengers had returned a negative result, and the remainder were expected to have results in the next couple of days.

The Health Ministry continued to urge people who had been at any of the locations of interest across Wellington to immediately isolate at their home and seek advice about testing.

It reminded people there was a health order in place that legally required people at exposure sites to following instructions regarding isolation and testing.

Wellington remains on alert level 2 until 11.59pm on Tuesday.

Yesterday there were no new cases in the community and just one case in managed isolation.

Concerns were raised by the positive test of a fully-vaccinated health worker who lived in Masterton.

The person initially returned a weak positive result, with a very high cycle threshold, or CT value.

A second test returned a negative test.

Health officials said the case was under investigation with the repeat test providing more information.

There are currently 19 people with the infection in New Zealand.