15 January 2021

There are 18 new cases of COVID-19 to report in managed isolation in New Zealand since our last media statement on Wednesday. Two of these cases are classified as historical and deemed not infectious.

There are no new cases in the community. 

Of the new border cases:

 Four cases have now recovered, bringing the total number of active cases in New Zealand to 76. Our total number of confirmed cases is 1,890.

The total number of tests processed by laboratories to date is 1,457,076.
On Wednesday 4,519 tests were processed and yesterday there were 4,358 tests processed.
The seven-day rolling average up to yesterday is 3,653 tests processed.

Over the summer break the Ministry of Health continues to encourage people with any COVID-19 symptoms to get assessed for testing by contacting their doctor or calling Healthline. Healthline is free and available 24/7. Medical professionals are best placed to assess whether a test is needed.

New pre-departure testing requirement

From 11.59pm tonight, travellers from the United States and United Kingdom will be required to produce a negative test result for COVID-19 upon landing in New Zealand. Travellers will be required to provide evidence of their pre-departure test result as they go through Customs.

This measure is in addition to travellers arriving from the United States and the United Kingdom requiring a COVID-19 test on day 0/1 and needing to stay in their rooms until a test result is available, i.e. testing within 24 hours of arriving into managed isolation.

Pre-departure testing will soon be expanded to include all countries excluding Australia, Antarctica and some Pacific Island nations. These additional requirements have been put in place to further strengthen our border, to protect New Zealand from COVID-19 and new emerging variants.

More detailed information for travellers can be found on the United Against COVID-19 website.

NZ COVID Tracer

NZ COVID Tracer now has 2,443,320 registered users. Poster scans have reached 152,965,461 and users have now created more than 6,179,816 manual diary entries.

Ministry of Health updates

The Ministry will continue to provide updates about cases and actions taken in response. The frequency of reporting continues to reflect the routine nature of the cases appearing at the border in recent returnees in managed isolation facilities.

The next release will be on Sunday.