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New milestone reached in fight against Covid-19 with no active cases in New Zealand

June 8, 2020
Dr Ashley Bloomfield

There are now no active cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand after the remaining person with the illness has recovered, the Ministry of Health confirmed today.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health said the final case, a person in Auckland, had been symptom free for 48 hours and is regarded as recovered. The person has now been released from isolation. 

The case was linked to the St Margaret’s Rest Home cluster in Auckland.

“This is really good news for the person concerned and it’s also something the rest of New Zealand can take heart from,” Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said in a statement. 

“Having no active cases for the first time since February 28 is certainly a significant mark in our journey but as we’ve previously said, ongoing vigilance against Covid-19 will continue to be essential."

However the microbiologist voiced concerns as New Zealand looks to set up a travel bubble with Australia.

Since the first case of Covid-19 was recorded in New Zealand in late February there have been at total of   1482 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 350 probable Covid-19 cases. It has now been 17 days since a new Covid-19 case has been recorded in New Zealand.

There were no new deaths announced by the Ministry of Health today, with the national death toll remaining at 22.

Yesterday there were 800 tests for Covid-19 carried out in New Zealand, bringing the total number of tests to over 294,800. Lower numbers of tests per day are typical for weekends.

Eight significant clusters of Covid-19 have closed - unchanged from yesterday. A cluster is considered to be closed when there have been no new cases for 28 days from the date when all cases have completed isolation.

Anyone with respiratory symptoms is reminded they should still seek advice from Healthline, their GP or an after-hours clinic about getting a free Covid-19 test.

At 3pm today, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Dr Bloomfield will announce when New Zealand will move to Covid-19 Alert Level 1.

The announcement will be live on TVNZ1, as well as here on 1news.co.nz and on Facebook .

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