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National | Covid-19 Testing

No new Covid-19 cases, 24 hours after Wellington scare

No new Covid-19 cases have been reported today, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said during today's Parliament press conference.

This follows a case in Sydney who had travelled to Wellington over the weekend.  The man has been epidemiologically linked to patients in the Bondi outbreak in Sydney.

The partner of the man who travelled from Sydney is asymptomatic and has tested negative.

The man was confirmed to have had one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine 10 weeks ago. His partner, who also travelled, is confirmed to have the same dose and was given the jab three weeks ago, Health director-general Dr Ashley Bloomfield said.

As a precaution, Wellington moved into Alert Level 2 yesterday at 6pm, and will remain at that level until Sunday, June 27.

Race to trace

Testing soared in Wellington where a testing centre was opened on Taranaki Street yesterday. Today, there are more testing centres in Wellington, including Hataitai Park, Karori and the Wellington Regional Hospital as part of 50 testing stations set up across the region.

So far 420 contacts have been traced by the Ministry of Health's database as people who had contacted Healthline or got tested, and indicated that they had been at a location of interest. This includes the 58 people who arrived in Wellington on the same flight as the Covid case. All but five of those passengers have been contacted, and seven of them have returned to Australia.

Passengers on the flight back to Sydney on Monday that the case was on have not returned to New Zealand.

Wastewater testing for Wellington was taking place and results would be known tomorrow.

Meanwhile, New South Wales has recorded 11 new cases in the community, bringing the total connected to the Bondi cluster to 36, in an update at 11:16am Australian time [1:16pm NZ time].