New Zealand has reported 125 new covid-19 cases in the community today — including two new cases in Christchurch, the Ministry of Health says.
There was no covid-19 media conference for lockdown updates today.
In a statement, the ministry said the two Christchurch cases were expected and linked community cases, both from a single household linked to the cases identified earlier this week.
The ministry said 13 close contacts of the four Canterbury cases were isolating and will undergo further testing.
There was also one new case in Northland and four in Waikato, with the remaining 118 in Auckland.
Three of the Waikato cases are still to be linked, but the Northland case was not unexpected, as they were a household member of a case and were already isolating.
Fifty-one of the new cases are still to be linked. There have been 289 unlinked cases in the past 14 days.
Three new border cases
There were also three new cases and one historical case identified at the border.
There are 39 people in hospital with the coronavirus, including four in intensive care.
The ministry said the rise in case numbers was a reminder of the infectiousness of covid-19.
“With over 30,000 tests processed nationwide yesterday, these results aren’t unexpected,” it said.
There were 44,779 doses of the covid-19 vaccine given yesterday, including 12,780 first doses and 31,999 second doses.
One of the four new cases reported in the Waikato today has been linked to existing cases. Three of the new cases were in the Te Awamutu/Kihikihi area and one in Ōtorohanga.
There were 89 new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand yesterday, after the revelation of the first two cases in Christchurch.
The number of community cases linked to the current outbreak has risen to more than 3000, with 3046 cases in this outbreak — more than half of the 5764 in total since the pandemic began.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
