No new Covid-19 cases linked to infected Auckland Airport worker recorded today

April 21, 2021

The Director of Public Health talked about the case detected in Auckland the day before.

There are no cases of Covid-19 in the community today with one case at the border, the Ministry of Health confirmed today.

Today’s case update comes after the Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said genomic sequencing has shown the Auckland Airport worker who contracted Covid-19 yesterday has the UK variant.

It is linked to a passenger that arrived April 10.

The person cleans high-risk planes at Auckland International Airport and had cleaned the plane the passenger with Covid-19 was on.

All household and close contacts of the border worker tested so far have tested negative for the virus, Director of Public Health Caroline McElnay confirmed today.

An investigation currently underway would uncover how the person picked up the virus, McElnay says.

However, it was possible that with the air conditioning switched off in planes as they were cleaned, droplets from someone with Covid-19 positive could still be in the air, Hipkins said.

"The nature of a plane if the air conditioning is not going is that the air is quite stagnant.

“It's possible that that was still hanging in the air when someone went in to clean the plane, particularly if that happened quickly after it arrived."

New case at the border today

There is one case at the border today. The person tested negative on day three of routine testing.

They had recently returned from Switzerland via Qatar.


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