‘Still early days’ - Kiwis warned despite no new Covid-19 cases

June 24, 2021

The Covid-19 Response Minister urged caution as only four days have passed since an infected traveller visited Wellington.

Zero Covid-19 cases being recorded in New Zealand today is cause for optimism, but people still need to be cautious, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. 

It comes after a person with Covid-19 travelled from Sydney to Wellington last weekend, resulting in the capital and surrounding being moved to Alert Level 2. 

“Any day where there’s no cases is a good day. However, having said that, it’s still early days yet so it doesn’t tell us a lot at this point,” Hipkins said. 

“Bearing in mind, we’re only talking about four days since the weekend.”

When asked if it was too early to be testing people, the Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said even if people tested negative for Covid-19, they are still being asked to monitor their symptoms for 14 days after potential exposure to the virus. 

Hipkins said genome sequencing is still underway to determine which variant the traveller had. However, Australian health authorities had confirmed the case was epidemiologically linked to Sydney's Bondi cluster. 

Chris Hipkins.

Bloomfield said he was meeting with Australian health officials at 2.30pm today, and he expected test results to be shared then. 

About 7000 people were tested yesterday, with 2100 in Wellington alone. 

There were also no new Covid-19 cases recorded in managed isolation today.

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