1 new case of COVID-19 11 September

There is one new community case of COVID-19 to report in New Zealand today.

The new case has an epidemiological link to an existing case and is associated with the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship bereavement events group.

There are a number of inter-related cases and contacts who may have been involved with both the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship sub-cluster, and the bereavement sub-cluster.

We have worked with ARPHS to refine our information to more clearly identify those whose source of infection occurred at the bereavement events.

As a result, we can now say there are 33 cases in the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship group and 13 cases in the bereavement sub-cluster, which includes the cases whose source of infection was the bereavement events.

Church leaders are actively encouraging all members of the congregation to be retested, and at 8am this morning our laboratories had registered new tests for 82 per cent of the congregation. We want to thank them for their participation in contributing to our efforts to control the wider Auckland cluster.

We ask that the privacy of people who are part of the Fellowship be respected – nobody asks for COVID-19 to come into their home, workplace, or place of worship.

The Ministry has received reports of people associated with the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship being pursued by media. This is creating stress and, crucially, hindering public health work as these people are becoming reluctant to answer their phones.

It is also creating a sense of stigma which is again unhelpful for public health efforts – we need people to be forthcoming and cooperative with testing and contact tracing.

Those affected by the virus need our collective support, and we need their cooperation to ensure COVID-19 does not spread further in our communities.

Numbers

There are now 70 people linked to the community cluster who remain in the Auckland quarantine facility, which includes 55 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their household contacts.

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