There are 5 new cases of COVID-19 to report today. One of the new cases is another Gisborne Boys’ High School student.
“We now have two students at the school who have a number of school contacts, including teachers,” said Hauora Tairāwhiti chief executive Jim Green.
“While we do not have evidence of spread in the school at this stage, with the number of contacts the decision has been made with the school for the whole school to move to distance learning for the next 48 hours or until we’re confident there’s been no transmission. This will give us enough time to receive today’s testing results and conduct further testing and investigation over the next two days.
“I know whānau will be anxious about what’s going on, but I urge the parents of the students to keep their children at home within their bubble.
“I ask that parents only get their children tested if they are identified as a school contact and asked to get a test. The school is contacting the affected students and their parents by phone and text message.
“Please leave our testing centres for those who really need to be tested. We need to test the school contacts at Boys’ High, close contacts of the other cases we have identified today and other people in the community who have symptoms.”
School contacts aren’t considered close contacts due to the school protection settings such as mask wearing and distancing. School contacts require self-isolation until a negative test result is received and the medical officer of health is confident there hasn’t been any transmission at the school.
Contact tracing has begun for the other four positive cases, who are all in self-isolation.
There are no new locations of interest to report and they will be posted here as they are released: https://bit.ly/2M1fgib.
Testing will resume tomorrow at Watson Park from 9am to midday and vaccination clinics can be found here: https://bit.ly/3o38iZP