Otago mine worker isolating

Christchurch will remain in alert level 2 despite one of the two positive Covid-19 cases working as a truck driver while infectious for more than three days.

During a press conference on yesterday afternoon, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the two unvaccinated individuals were from the suburb of Bishopdale.

They had no major exposure events, and nine close contacts across three households had been identified and were self-isolating.

Late yesterday, OceanaGold issued a statement on its Facebook page saying the partner of a contractor at its Macraes mine site in Otago had been deemed a close contact of one of the Christchurch Covid cases.

The couple had been advised to get tested and isolate until the results came back.

The company would monitor other staff for any Covid-19 related symptoms, the statement said.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the two positive Christchurch cases were a woman in her 50s and a man in his 40s. The woman had recently travelled to Auckland to provide childcare for wha¯ nau.

The woman had a negative test before travelling to Auckland with a child care exemption, and returned a second negative test before returning to Christchurch on Friday, October 15, where she infected another family member she lives with.

Bloomfield said the woman was not considered to be infectious when travelling to Christchurch.

Both cases became unwell last week and were tested on Tuesday night before they returned a positive result on Wednesday night.

Bloomfield confirmed the second case works as a truck driver, and was assisting authorities with his movements in the three-anda-half days he was working while potentially infectious.

He was driving around Christchurch during that time and in the north of Christchurch.

Hipkins previously said the pair had not been scanning QR codes regularly.

Both cases were being moved to a managed isolation and quarantine facility in Christchurch yesterday while authorities continued to identify any possible exposure events.

A wastewater sample taken in Christchurch on Tuesday was negative, he said, ruling out a ‘‘reasonable number of cases’’ in the city.

Increased wastewater testing would take place in Waimakariri water catchments, including Rangiora, Kaiapoi and Woodend. Ashburton wastewater would also be tested.

Bloomfield urged Canterbury residents to keep checking the Ministry of Health website for locations of interest.

He said testing centres in Christchurch had been busy yesterday and public health officials had scaled up capacity to meet extra demand.

More than 2600 extra vaccination slots were made available across Christchurch, he said.

‘‘People should take the opportunity to get vaccinated.’’

Apart from last week’s Blenheim case, the latest Christchurch cases were the first in the South Island for almost a year – November 2 of last year being the last case.

Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel said she felt the city had had a ‘‘lucky break’’, given how virulent the Delta virus is.

She said it was ‘‘good news’’ that Christchurch would be staying at level 2, but it was ‘‘a wake-up call’’ that Cantabrians need to remember the mantra ‘‘wear the masks and use the QR codes’’.

‘‘That was the shocking thing today, to find out that they [the cases] are not using the QR codes the way they should be.’’

Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said news of cases was ‘‘not unexpected’’ given the increasing number of cases in the North Island and the spread of the virus to other areas, such as Waikato.

Contact-tracing, testing, including wastewater testing, and

vaccinations, were the ‘‘three legs of the elimination approach’’, Baker said. ‘‘Collectively that should be enough to stamp out the outbreak.’’

Covid-19 modeller Professor Michael Plank told Stuff if the infected cases had been interacting with many people in the community while infectious, this would be a high-risk scenario and would require a level 3 lockdown ‘‘as soon as possible’’.

Knowing when the people first developed symptoms would be vital, as they would have been infectious for about two days before then.

Dr Apisalome Talemaitoga, chairman of the Pasifika GP network and the Pacific Chapter of the Royal NZ College of GPs, said no-one should have been allowed to travel outside of Auckland without being fully vaccinated. ‘‘I just find it unbelievable that we are allowing unvaccinated people out of Auckland to travel – for whatever reason. People should be double-vaccinated before they can do this.

‘‘This highlights the delay and ‘dragging the chain’ with rapid antigen testing. The fact we are still relying on a negative PCR test ‘before leaving Auckland’ sounds so ‘old hat’.’’

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a press conference in Lower Hutt yesterday that the first case was tested before they returned home and ‘‘that was the protection many people asked for’’.

The situation reinforced why having precautionary measures in place was so important, and highlighted how difficult it was to create an iron clad seal between key centres, she said.

‘‘This individual was returning home – requiring them to be vaccinated to go home is difficult.’’

Ardern said the decision to keep Christchurch in level 2 was consistent with the Government’s approach in other regions when they had known the origin of cases. Officials are able to contact trace around these cases, they know their movements, and have identified, isolated and tested close contacts.

The level 2 restrictions help reduce risk, said the prime minister.

Meanwhile, news of the positive cases sparked an apparent surge in people going to the city’s testing centres. About 100 cars were queued at the Pages Rd site, in east Christchurch, yesterday as people waited to be swabbed. Cars were also backed up for at least a kilometre at the Orchard Rd testing centre near Christchurch Airport.

At the end of Tuesday, 89 per cent of about 480,000 eligible people in the Canterbury DHB area had had their first dose of the vaccine – while 68 per cent were fully vaccinated.