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For a fourth-straight day there are no new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand

May 21, 2020

The Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield provided the update from Wellington on May 21.

There are no new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says.

There were no new cases of the virus reported on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday either. 

Dr Bloomfield was speaking with media in Wellington at his final 1pm briefing for the week. He also used the occassion to remind Kiwis about flu vaccines, encouraging people to get them ahead of winter.

"You'll recall that this year we ordered a record number of 1.76 million southern hemisphere vaccines and that's now been opened for everyone to be able to get vaccinated for the last two and a half weeks.

"We are still asking our immunisation providers, though, to just keep back some of that vaccine for our high-needs groups - for example, pregnant women."

Dr Bloomfield added New Zealand has also managed to secure an extra 360,000 doses of the northern hemisphere vaccine, which can be used by healthy people aged three to 64.

"This vaccine is not quite the same four components of the southern hemisphere vaccine," Dr Bloomfield said.

"It's an absolute match for two of the four components. It provides some partial protection for a third and the other strain of virus that is in is not a match for the existing southern hemisphere vaccine.

"However, the advice has been very clear from our experts that using this vaccine would afford useful protection to Kiwis and that will now be available to be used once the supplies of our southern hemisphere vaccine have been all given to people."

Dr Bloomfield asked Kiwis to go and get immunised if they haven't already.

"It is of much more value in people's arms than it is sitting on the shelf."

Today's announcement of no new Covid-19 cases means New Zealand's total number of people who have or have had Covid-19, including probable cases, remains at 1503. The number of confirmed cases - the number New Zealand gives to the World Health Organisation and compares with other nations - is still 1153.

Of those cases, Dr Bloomfield confirmed 1452 people have recovered, up five on yesterday for 97 per cent of all cases. A recovered case means the person is symptom free for at least 48 hours and it has been at least 10 days since they first became ill.

Dr Bloomfield added there is one person in hospital with the virus. The person is not in intensive care.

There are still 16 significant Covid-19 clusters around the country. A significant cluster is a group of 10 or more people who have or have had the coronavirus.

Yesterday, 6113 Covid-19 tests were carried out in New Zealand, bringing the total to 244,838 so far.

The Ministry of Health will update the numbers tomorrow and over the weekend on its website. 

There have also been no new clusters for over a month.

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