Bloomfield to essential workers: If been at location of interest - stay home, get tested

August 19, 2021

Dr Ashley Bloomfield says essential workers could be a vector for Covid-19 transmission.

There’s a risk essential workers could become vectors for Covid-19 transmission, so it’s important they keep checking the burgeoning list of locations of interest, the Director-General of Health says. 

Overnight, the locations and times of interest related to the latest Covid-19 outbreak ballooned to about 70 locations across Auckland and Coromandel. The locations include venues like a church, nightclub, casino, school, and university. 

Dr Ashley Bloomfield says it's important for everyone to keep an eye on the list as it continues to be updated, but especially essential workers. 

New Zealand only had to look to New South Wales for a warning about how the virus could spread through essential workers, like a taxi driver who was infectious in the community for 10 days, he says. 

“Any essential worker who has been in a location of interest needs to stay home, and not go out, and get tested.”

He said he didn’t yet have news about new cases overnight, because the information was put into the Ministry of Health’s systems at about 9am. 

Bloomfield said an update on case numbers would come at 1pm. 

“What I’m expecting is that there will have been more cases [overnight],” he said. 

The Air New Zealand worker who tested positive for the virus was detected at weekly surveillance testing, and wasn't currently connected to the latest cluster. So Bloomfield said there was a possibility she might have just coincidentally tested positive.

The Alert Level 4 lockdown had contained the “real potential” that the Delta variant of Covid-19 could have spread further and wider into the community, Bloomfield added. 

Professor Michael Plank with his take on those numbers.

And, while it could be disheartening to hear about more and more cases every day, he said “if we know about [cases], we can do something about them”. 

Bloomfield said he and his team were starting to put together advice they would be presenting to Cabinet tomorrow, as it decides on alert level settings. 

He said this initial lockdown gave officials time to gather information, and the information that came today and tomorrow would be guiding its advice to Cabinet. 

“The important thing is however long the lockdown is, we stick with it.”

The Director General of Health joined Breakfast after news that four close contacts had been identified in New Zealand’s capital.

He was confident the Delta variant could be stamped out in the community because the country went into Alert Level 4 quickly. 

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