Three new community COVID-19 cases have been detected in south Auckland, officials have confirmed, and they are all from the same family.
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield held an impromptu press conference on Sunday afternoon to confirm these latest cases.
The mother and daughter returned positive test results on Saturday night with relatively low CT values, the Ministry of Health says, which indicates they are new and active infections. The father returned his positive result on Sunday morning. Genome sequencing is underway.
There is a fourth person in their household who is awaiting their test results.
As soon as the first two positive results were returned, the entire household was placed into isolation.
All four family members will be housed at the Jet Park Hotel quarantine facility until they have recovered.
Here is what we know so far about these cases.
Locations the trio visited
Papatoetoe High School
The daughter is a student at Papatoetoe High School. Principal Vaughan Couillault told the NZ Herald the girl is in year nine and was only at school on Wednesday last week.
The school will be closed on Monday and Tuesday.
Staff, students, and their families are being asked to self-isolate for two days if they are casual contacts.
Pak'nSave Manukau
Two of the positive cases had short visits there for 10 minutes on Friday February 12. Anyone who visited the store between 3:35pm and 5pm on that day should stay home and isolate, be alert for symptoms, get tested, and stay isolated until a result has been returned.
Taranaki
Between February 6 and 8, two of the cases travelled to New Plymouth and visited tourist attractions. The dates they were there are potentially around the time they became symptomatic.
The Ministry of Health is due to release further details of these locations on Sunday afternoon.
Work locations
LSG Sky Chefs
The mother of the family works at LSG Sky Chefs and is regularly tested for COVID-19 since she is a border worker. She was initially tested when she and her daughter felt symptomatic.
The woman was last at her workplace on February 5 and wasn't considered infectious when she was there.
LSG Sky Chefs is an airline catering company. The woman's main duty at work was in the laundry area, but she is also involved in the packing of food.
Self-employed
The father is a self-employed tradesperson.
Additional testing centres
A new testing centre will be set up at Papatoetoe High School on Monday, Dr Bloomfield said.
Other testing centres in the Auckland region can be found here.
The Ministry of Health says the hours for the regional community testing centres in Northcote, Balmoral, Henderson, and Otara are being extended for Sunday. The community testing centre in Wiri is also open on Sunday.
