Daily Media Update - Wednesday 6 May 2020

No new cases in Southern

The Ministry of Health has announced no new COVID-19 cases in the Southern district today, for the eighteenth consecutive day. The region’s total remains 216, with nine active cases, 205 now recovered and two deceased.

Southern DHB Medical Officer of Health Dr Susan Jack said health staff were closely monitoring the condition of people who remain active cases.

“International literature on COVID-19 indicates that the speed of recovery for patients with COVID-19 varies.  Some people recover quickly and for others there is a longer tail for recovery.

“Our Southern case monitors are in daily contact with all of our active cases and, where appropriate, we ask for them to be reassessed by GPs, or re-swabbed.  We are keeping a very close watch on these patients during their recovery.”

Dr Jack said no new cases in Southern for the eighteenth consecutive day was pleasing.  For the Southern outbreak to be declared over there needed to be no new cases for the duration of two incubation cycles for COVID-19.  The incubation cycle for COVID-19 was 14 days, so Southern has already passed one cycle with no new cases.

While this was a cause for optimism, Dr Jack urged people to stay at home where possible, maintain physical distancing, hand hygiene and other requirements of Alert Level 3.  “We need everyone in Southern doing their bit to help stamp this out,” she said.

We have now results for over 1,600 people tested across our district as part of our asymptomatic surveillance and all have tested negative. This, together with no positive cases in the last three weeks from people with symptoms, gives us increasing assurance that we are unlikely to have any undetected cases in our district.

Please note confirmed and probable cases are combined, to match Ministry case reporting. For a breakdown by Territorial Authority please visit the Southern Health website: 

https://www.southernhealth.nz/sdhbCOVID19/cases-updates

ENDS.