Flight details for most of New Zealand's newest coronavirus cases have been released by the Ministry of Health.
There are now 28 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the country, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said earlier today.
All of the cases are people who have returned from overseas, and as yet no community transmission has been confirmed.
Case number 28: Southern DHB, details to come.
Case number 27: Southern DHB, details to come.
Case number 26: Auckland, male. Arrived in Auckland on Sunday 15 March from London to Singapore (flight QF2 on 13 March) to Melbourne (flight QF36 on 14th March) to Auckland on Qantas flight QF153.
Case number 25: Auckland, male, aged in 60s, Arrived in Auckland on Friday 13 March from Los Angeles on Air New Zealand flight NZ05.
Case number 24: Rotorua, male. Arrived from France on Friday 13 March, more details to come.
Case number 23: Northland, male, aged in 20s. Arrived in Auckland on Monday 16th March from Paris to Abu Dhabi (Ehtiad flight EY38 on 14 March) to Sydney (Etihad flight EY450) on Virgin Australia flight VA0141.
Case number 22: Taranaki, male, aged in 40s. Arrived in New Plymouth on Sunday 15 March from Cairo to New Plymouth via Frankfurt (Lufthansa LH581), Vancouver (Air New Zealand NZ23) and Auckland (Air New Zealand NZ8035).
Case number 21: Taranaki, female, aged in 40s. Arrived in New Plymouth on Monday 9 March from Cairo to New Plymouth via Dubai on flight Emirates EK926, Auckland on flight Emirates EK448 and Air New Zealand flight NZ8041 to New Plymouth.
Case number 20: Waikato, male, aged in 70s. Arrived on Sunday 15 March from Europe. Flight numbers to come.
For more details on all of the confirmed cases and their travel details go to the Ministry of Health website.
There is still no evidence of community transmission in New Zealand, Bloomfield says.
The Ministry of Health is working to identify any close contacts.
Two of the cases are in Southland, two in Taranaki, one in Rotorua, one in Northland and two in Auckland.
None of the new eight cases are school students.
"We are obviously alert to all the new cases and identifying any close contacts," Bloomfield says.
The Ministry of Health is contacting up to 1000 close contacts of the 28 confirmed cases.
Healthline will be provided with the details for the people considered close contacts from being on the flights with the new eight cases.
Bloomfield said he hasn't heard any official word on a full national lockdown, like in Italy.
"We are planning for a long-term effort here," Bloomfield said.
Bloomfield said he didn't have a timeframe for when New Zealand will experience community spread.
"We are watching very closely as to whether we have any community spread. We also want to act before we see any evidence of widespread community outbreak."
"We've seen a big increase in the number of tests being done, only a few of those cases are testing positive, but it does give us a good idea of whether there's wider community transmission. We're testing people with wider influenza symptoms and it's not at this point been covid-19."
"There's a lot of work going on to confirm our labs have everything they need to conduct the tests, get the results out quickly, identify the positive results and contact trace."
Bloomfield said some of the earlier cases will be recovered now, but they all need to stay self-isolated for 14 days once they've recovered.
Some elective surgery is being postponed so staff can be upskilled on how to care for people who are ventilated.
Get used to keeping your distance
Bloomfield emphasised we need to get used to maintaining physical distance, particularly when visiting older people in the community.
Government agencies are working with businesses to create more distance between employees.
The recommended social distancing is 1.5 metres and the distance for contact tracing is 2 metres.
Bloomfield said people need to be taking care of their mental wellbeing and there's information on the Ministry of Health website.
