Covid cases continue to rise

Canterbury Covid cases as of 8am, March 1. *Please note, the Ministry of Health’s daily reported cases today in Canterbury may differ from those reported at a DHB or local public health unit level. This is because of different reporting cut off times and the assignment of cases between regions, for example when a case is tested outside their usual region of residence. Image: CDHB

Cases of Covid-19 in Canterbury are expected to continue to climb this week.

The Canterbury District Health Board reported that Ashburton had 102 new cases in the community on Monday morning.

573 new community cases in Canterbury

The total number of cases in the district as of Tuesday morning had risen to 435, almost triple the number since Friday (147) when the CDHB began releasing case numbers at a district level.

In Christchurch this morning there was a total of 2232 cases in the community. Case numbers are expected to continue to rise across the region this week.

Rangitata MP Jo Luxton said “there’s no doubt the next few weeks are going to be tough, but what we’re seeing is what we expected”.

“We just need to stick to our plan and support each other in our community as we manage higher numbers of cases in coming weeks before we reach our peak.”

As New Zealand marked two years of living with Covid-19 yesterday, the Ministry of Health reported 14,633 new cases in the community.

In Ashburton’s favour was high vaccination rates.

According to the CDHB, over 95 per cent of people in the Ashburton District had received their primary course of the Covid vaccine and 71 per cent of those who were eligible had now received their booster shot.

As case numbers went up, the Government announced changes regarding close contacts.

Close contacts were no longer required to self-isolate and only confirmed cases and household contacts of a confirmed case needed to do so.

Luxton clarified that the critical worker exemption scheme would enable eligible household contacts to return to work during their isolation periods by returning a daily negative Rapid Antigen Test, and “should it become necessary we may consider supporting probable or confirmed cases to return to work”, she said.

The ‘bubble of 1’ may also help to keep people working even if they were a household contact she said.

“If you are not customer facing and can maintain your bubble while working you may be able to work as a ‘bubble of 1’.

“This may apply to many of our primary sector workers.”

To work under a bubble of 1, workers must still be fully vaccinated, not have Covid-19 symptoms and not have contact with anyone else at work.

“You do not need to use rapid antigen tests to return to work and businesses will not need to register for the ‘bubble of 1’.”

-By Jonathan Leask