T-T bubble ban extended

The trans-tasman bubble will be suspended for a further eight weeks, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said yesterday.

Speaking at yesterday’s covid-19 briefing, Robertson said the suspension of quarantine-free travel would be reviewed in midto-late November.

In a statement, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the decision had been brought forward to enable those in Australia access to the first tranche of about 3000 rooms in MIQ.

He also said Air NZ was working “at pace” to put on more flights from Australia from October.

Robertson said another red flight for emergency travel would also be made available.

He said the number of people who are vaccinated on both sides of the Tasman will be part of the reconsideration in two months.

At the moment, it was appropriate decision to have it on pause, he said.

“One of the things we might consider going forward is a state by state approach,” he said, but it was not appropriate at present. It seemed like it would be “unlikely” in two months’ time also, he added.

Robertson also said the third round of wage subsidy and resurgence support payment opened for applications this morning.

He said 480,697 wage subsidy applications have been approved, totalling $2.1 billion.

Director of public health Dr Caroline Mcelnay told the briefing officials were now “cautiously optimistic we were now closing in on the outbreak”.

“We have reduced the number of unlinked cases right down,” she

said, with those now numbering eight.

“Our metrics are very good,” Mcelnay said about the time it took to contact-trace a positive case. Contact tracers were working fast enough.

A positive wastewater result was found in East Auckland on Monday and results of a followup sample taken on Wednesday were expected in the “coming days”, Mcelnay said.

Wastewater detections like this reinforced the importance of testing to err on the side of caution, she said.

Seventy-three per cent of the eligible population now had at least one dose of the Covid vaccine.

There are nine epidemiologically linked subclusters identified in this outbreak — two are active,

and seven are contained. An additional one is dormant.

A further 10 sub-clusters are unlinked — two are active, three contained and five dormant.

The case identified at Middlemore Hospital on Thursday has not yet been linked to the outbreak.

A truck driver and a family member who tested positive for Covid-19 have been transferred to MIQ. He visited a number of supermarkets in Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty.

Waikato locations of interest were expected later yesterday, Mcelnay said.

The driver wore a mask and maintained social distancing while working, she added.

The delivery areas are not listed as locations of interest because they are not open to the public. Staff have been notified.

A person in the truck driver’s household was symptomatic and got tested, and so did the truck driver. Both results came back positive. They had been tested before that.

About 7400 people were tested in Auckland on Thursday - including 1710 taken from suburbs of interest. There had been about 9200 tests collectively from those suburbs this week.

Some 15,000 tests were processed across the country yesterday.

Mcelnay said several vehicles were turned around at checkpoints on Auckland’s boundary overnight for failing to provide evidence of having a negative covid test.

Since the start of September, 22,000 essential workers have had asymptomatic testing.

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