No new COVID-19 cases reported in Hawke’s Bay

24 Apr 2020, 15:19

The Ministry of Health today reported no new COVID-19 cases in Hawke’s Bay. The total for the region remains at 42 with 26 of those people now fully recovered. 

Medical Officer of Health Dr Nick Jones said the District Health Board and Health Hawke’s Bay (PHO) had agreed an additional testing plan, which would focus on three areas:

• Making testing more accessible for rural areas including doing illness checks through either face-to-face household calls or by phone and then referring anyone, if needed, to an existing Community-based Assessment Centre (CBAC). Mobile clinics may be put in place in these rural areas if any positive cases were found or if people were unable to travel to a CBAC
• Testing highly exposed people such as staff testing at rest homes where there have been confirmed cases, and also more testing of unwell  essential workers and unwell workers who share accommodation facilities
• Proactive testing of all contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases notified in the past week.

 Dr Jones said a number of staff were actively working on this so by the end of Level 3 the district health board could be confident they had detected all the cases of COVID-19 in Hawke’s Bay.

“We continue to urge anyone with symptoms, even very mild symptoms such as a runny nose or sore throat to call either their GP or Healthline so they can be assessed for referral to a CBAC.”

Symptoms of COVID-19 include cold or flu-like illness with one or more of the following: a fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, a runny nose or loss of smell.

Feeling unwell? Call your GP or Healthline for free on 0800 358 5453 to be assessed for referral to a Community-Based Assessment Centre (CBAC) for testing.