Coronavirus: New Zealand has another 40 confirmed cases

Publish Date
Tuesday, 24 March 2020, 1:01PM

There are 40 new cases of coronavirus confirmed in New Zealand today.

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told reporters there were also three new probable cases.

This takes the total cases in this country to 155.

The probable cases had returned a negative result, but their history and symptoms showed they had Covid-19, and they were treated the same as if they had returned a positive result.

Details of the cases would be updated on the Ministry of Health website.

Six cases were in hospital, and they were all stable, and none of them required ICU treatment.

Twelve patients had recovered, Bloomfield said.

"Anyone who has been tested is expected to be in strict self-isolation until they are advised of the result."

All new cases that he had information on, about a third of the 40 new cases, had a link to overseas travel or to close contacts of an already confirmed case.

Most cases in New Zealand were still related to overseas travel, he said.

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"At this point, we are classifying four cases as 'community transmission' - three in Auckland and one in the Wairarapa."

Contact tracing was underway for all of those cases.

More than 900 tests were carried out yesterday, bringing the total to over 8,300 tests.

 

This article was originally posted by NZ Herald and reproduced here with permission.

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