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School rugby game among new locations of interest; Auckland businesses' anxiety over support

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Thu, 26 Aug 2021, 8:42am

School rugby game among new locations of interest; Auckland businesses' anxiety over support

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Thu, 26 Aug 2021, 8:42am

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New Zealand is bracing for the worst number of infections so far this outbreak, as potential exposure sites mount and a warning the first wave's peak will hit in the next 48 hours.

It comes as a second quarantine facility is due to open in Auckland to place the ballooning number of infected people needing to be isolated from families and outbreak models show a need to keep the city in lockdown for weeks to curb spread.

A supermarket worker who worked during level 4 is believed to be a Covid case, based on the latest locations of interest information.

Countdown refused to confirm whether a staff member at its Westgate Massey store has tested positive for Covid-19, citing privacy concerns.

In a statement, the grocery retailer said they now had more than 2100 of their team members isolating across New Zealand. However, they said there were several reasons for that, including they don't have childcare available or are vulnerable to Covid-19. In Auckland and Wellington, teams were isolating due to their store being a location of interest or due to the fact they had a household member who had been impacted by a location of interest.

And five secondary school rugby games played at South Auckland's De La Salle College are now potential exposure sites for Covid-19.

Everyone who watched or took part in a sporting clash that took place at the Mangere school on Saturday, August 14, is considered a close contact and asked to isolate for 14 days. They include teams from Mt Albert Grammar, King's College, St Paul's College, Massey High and Dilworth School.

The locations of interest website does not specify which of these clashes are possible exposure events, rather lists the school.

There are 494 exposure events involving 364 locations on the Ministry of Health's locations of interest.

Another West Auckland supermarket has been added to the updated locations of interest. Shoppers who visited the Countdown Westgate Shopping Centre in Massey on Thursday August 19 and Saturday August 21 are asked to self-isolate.

There are currently 210 cases of Covid in this current outbreak spread across two main cities. There are 198 people infected in Auckland and 12 in Wellington.

Yesterday saw the largest single-day tally, with 62 new cases. A dozen people are being treated for the infection in hospital, but none are in ICU.

Auckland councillors have been told today about nervousness in the business community about the Government only committing the wage subsidy for two weeks.

Nick Hill, chief executive of council's economic development agency Auckland Unlimited, said a senior business manager told him there was a sense there was not as much cash to support businesses.

"It's that uncertainty and the virulence of the virus that generates quite a lot of nervousness in the system at the moment, possibly more than it was previously," he said.

Hill was addressing the governing body meeting of the council over a Zoom call.

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