The Auckland airport worker who tested positive for Covid-19 yesterday despite being fully vaccinated cleaned a plane that brought a returnee with the virus back to New Zealand on April 10.Hipkins said the genome sequencing confirmed the link last night.
He will be accompanied by Dr Caroline McElnay, the director of public health, and they will also provide the latest numbers for the vaccine roll-out.
McElnay said there were no new community cases to report and one new case in MIQ, who arrived from Switzerland.
There were no new cases linked to the airport worker, who was last night moved to the Auckland quarantine facility.
The plane cleaner, who works for Menzies, worked three shifts during their infectious period with a number of colleagues, and officials are working to determine who is a close contact from their interactions.
Currently, there are 25 close contacts, 17 of which are work colleagues, and seven tested so far have tested negative, while one is being followed up.
Others will be tested on day five.
The worker had cleaned green zone planes flying back from Australia on Monday, and wore full PPE while cleaning.
"Our assessment is there is no additional risk to any passengers who traveled on those flights cleaned by the infected person."
In reponse to workers cleaning both red and green zone planes, Hipkins said a person working in the red zone at an airport was able to go home after work and was free to do what they wanted outside of work
He said the Australian protocols are the same. The risk of someone cleaning a plane is minimal "if any at all".
"The person was wearing PPE while doing those jobs."
There was nothing to suggest that those protocols needed to change, he added.
The genome sequence was an exact match - the UK variant - to a returnee from Ehtiopia who arrived via Dubai on April 10 on the plane the worker cleaned.
How the cleaner was infected was still being looked at.
McElnay said she didn't know how much time passed before the cleaner boarded the plane after the passengers disembarked.
There are no new locations of interest so far beyond the three that were released yesterday.
There have been 183,351 doses of the Pfizer vaccine administered as of yesterday, including 42,771 people had had two doses.
Hipkins had his second dose of the vaccine.
He said 41 per cent of those vaccinated were in Auckland, 19 per cent of whom were Maori or Pasifika.
He said about 7400 out of 50,000 household contacts of border workers had had a dose of the vaccine, but he would like those numbers to be higher.
He encouraged those people to get jabbed.
21,791 of people in group 2 were now fully vaccinated.
Hipkins said it was "ambitious" to be able to see 534,000 doses administered a week at the height of the vaccine roll-out.
He said it was important for people to come forward, book in, and to show up when they're booked in.
There were around 1200 active vaccinators so far, and 2500 people had completed the training to be vaccinators. McElnay said the training requirements for unregulated workers to become vaccinators was still being looked at. There were no legislative barriers, she added.
Asked whether we were 20,000 doses behind schedule, Hipkins said there was a data inconsistency that was being fixed and, in fact, we were slightly ahead of schedule.
Asked about a border company who can't get workers vaccinated, he said he didn't know the details but those workers were certainly eligible to get vaccinated.
Hipkins said he is writing to the chief executives of all the agencies working at the border to remind them of their legal obligations, including making sure their workers are being tested and that they keep records of those tests.
Only employers can ensure that workers who need to be tested are being tested, he said.
Hipkins said a system-wide audit across all employers at the border to ensure they were meeting their legal obligations has not happened.
Asked why not, he said there were a number of reasons including costs, adding that "we don't audit every New Zealander" to see if they're breaking the law.
Asked about ground crew interacting with passengers and not being regularly tested, he said he would like to see evidence of that because it meant employers weren't meeting their obligations.
Asked about a man in Brisbane taken to hospital three days after getting the Pfizer vaccine, Hipkins said that blood-clotting was not commonly associated with the Pfizer vaccine.
"Cause and effect here can sometimes be difficult to establish. People do get blood clots unrelated to vaccines."
McElnay said the ministry was monitoring what was happening with the Pfizer vaccine around the world.
The public information campaign around the vaccine rollout was being ramped up, he said, across print, radio and social media.
"That will start to ramp up again across the coming weeks."
He addressed people handing out professional-looking material to undermine mask-wearing on public transport, which he called "potentially dangerous".
A rubbish bin was the "only fit place" for those pamphlets, he said.
"Mask-wearing is simple, it's effective and it helps to keep us all safe."
Last week, the Ministry of Health released the number of planned weekly doses up until the end of June. This week, DHBs plan to administer 52,925 doses, up from 46,525 last week.
This morning Hipkins said the genome sequencing results had confirmed that the airport worker's virus was linked to an infected overseas returnee, who returned to New Zealand on April 10.
The worker cleaned planes from high-risk countries and had received both vaccine jabs - which has 95 per cent efficacy in preventing symptomatic Covid-19.
An investigation was looking into whether there was any person-to-person contact between the worker and people on the infected flight, or if the worker might have caught the virus from droplets in the air inside the plane.
According to the Health Ministry, three positive cases from India, one from Ethiopia and two from Kenya all flew into New Zealand on April 10 via Dubai.
Three new locations of interest have been identified relating to the airport worker.
They are:
• Westfield St Luke's Food Court, Saturday, April 17, 12.15pm to 2.30pm
• Bunnings New Lynn, Saturday, April 17, 2.30pm to 3.50pm
• Movenpick Dominion Rd, Saturday, April 17, 5.15pm to 7.20pm
Five household contacts have been tested and have returned negative results. Sixteen close contacts have been identified so far.
Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said the fact the worker was vaccinated and didn't have symptoms meant "it's quite likely that they may have had a very low ... risk of infecting other people".
"This is right at the core of one of the great questions of vaccination, does it prevent you from transmitting the virus?
"Obviously, in this person's case, it didn't stop them from getting infected. It might be that their viral load remained very low, and their risk of infecti
Posted April 20, 2021 09:54 PM
The Auckland airport worker who tested positive for Covid-19 yesterday despite being fully vaccinated cleaned a plane that brought a returnee with the virus back to New Zealand on April 10.Hipkins said the genome sequencing confirmed the link last night.
He will be accompanied by Dr Caroline McElnay, the director of public health, and they will also provide the latest numbers for the vaccine roll-out.
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McElnay said there were no new community cases to report and one new case in MIQ, who arrived from Switzerland.
There were no new cases linked to the airport worker, who was last night moved to the Auckland quarantine facility.
The plane cleaner, who works for Menzies, worked three shifts during their infectious period with a number of colleagues, and officials are working to determine who is a close contact from their interactions.
Currently, there are 25 close contacts, 17 of which are work colleagues, and seven tested so far have tested negative, while one is being followed up.
Others will be tested on day five.
The worker had cleaned green zone planes flying back from Australia on Monday, and wore full PPE while cleaning.
"Our assessment is there is no additional risk to any passengers who traveled on those flights cleaned by the infected person."
In reponse to workers cleaning both red and green zone planes, Hipkins said a person working in the red zone at an airport was able to go home after work and was free to do what they wanted outside of work
He said the Australian protocols are the same. The risk of someone cleaning a plane is minimal "if any at all".
"The person was wearing PPE while doing those jobs."
There was nothing to suggest that those protocols needed to change, he added.
The genome sequence was an exact match - the UK variant - to a returnee from Ehtiopia who arrived via Dubai on April 10 on the plane the worker cleaned.
How the cleaner was infected was still being looked at.
McElnay said she didn't know how much time passed before the cleaner boarded the plane after the passengers disembarked.
There are no new locations of interest so far beyond the three that were released yesterday.
There have been 183,351 doses of the Pfizer vaccine administered as of yesterday, including 42,771 people had had two doses.
Hipkins had his second dose of the vaccine.
He said 41 per cent of those vaccinated were in Auckland, 19 per cent of whom were Maori or Pasifika.
He said about 7400 out of 50,000 household contacts of border workers had had a dose of the vaccine, but he would like those numbers to be higher.
He encouraged those people to get jabbed.
21,791 of people in group 2 were now fully vaccinated.
Hipkins said it was "ambitious" to be able to see 534,000 doses administered a week at the height of the vaccine roll-out.
He said it was important for people to come forward, book in, and to show up when they're booked in.
There were around 1200 active vaccinators so far, and 2500 people had completed the training to be vaccinators. McElnay said the training requirements for unregulated workers to become vaccinators was still being looked at. There were no legislative barriers, she added.
Asked whether we were 20,000 doses behind schedule, Hipkins said there was a data inconsistency that was being fixed and, in fact, we were slightly ahead of schedule.
Asked about a border company who can't get workers vaccinated, he said he didn't know the details but those workers were certainly eligible to get vaccinated.
Hipkins said he is writing to the chief executives of all the agencies working at the border to remind them of their legal obligations, including making sure their workers are being tested and that they keep records of those tests.
Only employers can ensure that workers who need to be tested are being tested, he said.
Hipkins said a system-wide audit across all employers at the border to ensure they were meeting their legal obligations has not happened.
Asked why not, he said there were a number of reasons including costs, adding that "we don't audit every New Zealander" to see if they're breaking the law.
Asked about ground crew interacting with passengers and not being regularly tested, he said he would like to see evidence of that because it meant employers weren't meeting their obligations.
Asked about a man in Brisbane taken to hospital three days after getting the Pfizer vaccine, Hipkins said that blood-clotting was not commonly associated with the Pfizer vaccine.
"Cause and effect here can sometimes be difficult to establish. People do get blood clots unrelated to vaccines."
McElnay said the ministry was monitoring what was happening with the Pfizer vaccine around the world.
The public information campaign around the vaccine rollout was being ramped up, he said, across print, radio and social media.
"That will start to ramp up again across the coming weeks."
He addressed people handing out professional-looking material to undermine mask-wearing on public transport, which he called "potentially dangerous".
A rubbish bin was the "only fit place" for those pamphlets, he said.
"Mask-wearing is simple, it's effective and it helps to keep us all safe."
Last week, the Ministry of Health released the number of planned weekly doses up until the end of June. This week, DHBs plan to administer 52,925 doses, up from 46,525 last week.
This morning Hipkins said the genome sequencing results had confirmed that the airport worker's virus was linked to an infected overseas returnee, who returned to New Zealand on April 10.
The worker cleaned planes from high-risk countries and had received both vaccine jabs - which has 95 per cent efficacy in preventing symptomatic Covid-19.
An investigation was looking into whether there was any person-to-person contact between the worker and people on the infected flight, or if the worker might have caught the virus from droplets in the air inside the plane.
According to the Health Ministry, three positive cases from India, one from Ethiopia and two from Kenya all flew into New Zealand on April 10 via Dubai.
Three new locations of interest have been identified relating to the airport worker.
They are:
• Westfield St Luke's Food Court, Saturday, April 17, 12.15pm to 2.30pm
• Bunnings New Lynn, Saturday, April 17, 2.30pm to 3.50pm
• Movenpick Dominion Rd, Saturday, April 17, 5.15pm to 7.20pm
Five household contacts have been tested and have returned negative results. Sixteen close contacts have been identified so far.
Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said the fact the worker was vaccinated and didn't have symptoms meant "it's quite likely that they may have had a very low ... risk of infecting other people".
"This is right at the core of one of the great questions of vaccination, does it prevent you from transmitting the virus?
"Obviously, in this person's case, it didn't stop them from getting infected. It might be that their viral load remained very low, and their risk of infecti