Auckland's new case of COVID-19 in the community will prompt "consideration around alert levels" as information is gathered to inform the Government's next move.
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins called an impromptu press conference at 1pm on Thursday to inform the nation that a community case of coronavirus had been discovered - a month after the country went into alert level 1.
"I want to stress that we are in the early days of information coming through. Many of the questions that people will immediately have we do not yet have answers to," Hipkins told reporters at the Beehive in Wellington.
"We will be undertaking a further press conference later on this afternoon, most likely around 5pm, and further information will also be shared with those who need to know that information as it comes to hand," he said.
"We have a plan for dealing with cases that emerge in the community and the deployment of that plan has stamped out cases quickly before. That's what we'll be focused on. Our approach needs to be calm and methodical."
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters ahead of the 1pm press conference that she would receive a full briefing from officials.
"I will leave it to the Director-General of Health and the Minister for COVID Response to brief the media. I'm expecting to get a substantive briefing after I've spoken with you [the media]," she said. "I cannot give you any details at this time."
The new community case is a student at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) who became symptomatic on Monday and was tested on Tuesday. The positive test result came back on Thursday and the individual has been sent to quarantine.
Senior members of the Government will be discussing whether a change in alert levels is necessary after it was revealed the infected student continued working at A-Z Collection on High St in Central Auckland while they were symptomatic.
"This is an important reminder of why anyone with cold or flu symptoms gets tested and our request is to stay home until you have the results of that test," Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told reporters.
The good news is the student has not been to the AUT campus or to lectures or classes since mid-October so there is no concern of potential exposure there.
But everyone who visited the A-Z Collection store between November 7 and 12 is urged to self-isolate and seek a COVID-19 test. The same goes for anyone who lives at Vincent Residency at 106 Vincent St in Auckland.
"We are urgently working to trace the person's movements so that we can identify not just people who may have been in contact but where the infection may have come from and genome testing is being urgently undertaken overnight to see if we can identify a link with our existing cases that we already know about," Dr Bloomfield said.
The last time a community case was discovered in Auckland in August the Government immediately implemented alert level 3 restrictions in the city, while the rest of the country was shifted to alert level 2 to be safe.
On August 11, four new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in the community in Auckland and that night the Prime Minister called an impromptu press conference to inform the nation that restrictions would come into effect the following day at noon.
"We weren't sharing the information quite as quickly as we are now," Hipkins said, comparing the Government's reaction to the outbreak in August to the latest case that's been discovered.
"I've had this for about an hour and a half - just under two hours - whereas previously you'll recall it came in just after the 1pm regular update cycle and we had a bit more time and the update was late in the evening," he said.
"So in this particular case we're sticking with the timetable we had which was to do an update at 1pm and I appreciate that there are still a number of questions and I'm hoping to be in a position to answer more of those as the day goes on."
Last time, Auckland remained under level 3 for almost a month until it shifted to level 2 on August 30. By October 7, Auckland had reached alert level 1 which is where we're at today - no restrictions except for the border.
"We don't have enough information at this point to make judgement calls on alert levels. As soon as we have that information, of course, we will share it," Hipkins said.
"Our immediate response to any case of COVID-19 is to gather as much information as possible about the case's movements and the likely source of infection. That's the process that we're engaged with at the moment."
There have been several cases of COVID-19 in the community in recent weeks and the Government has not changed the alert levels. But these were cases where it could be traced back to the state-run managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities.
This latest case is not linked to MIQ.
Hipkins was asked if the Government should change the alert level settings now as a precaution to prevent the virus from spreading further in the community.
"No, at this point we don't have enough information to be getting into a discussion around alert levels. We will do that before the end of the day," he said. "We're just not in a position right now to share that information."
But Hipkins did confirm that discussions "will include the consideration around alert levels".
"Movement in alert levels would be preceded by a Cabinet discussion and we will know more about whether we need to have one of those in a few more hours," he said.
"It will include what we know about the likely source of infection, what kind of movements the person has had over the infectious period which we're getting more information on - all of those things will come into play."
