Workers at four essential workplaces in Auckland have now been caught up in the current COVID Delta Variant outbreak.
Speaking at the 1pm press conference, the Prime Minister clarified that those four workplaces where Covid has been transmitted are not customer facing, but may be in places such as packaging or logistics.
“We need to cast our eyes over this with a Delta lens, do we need to change that up?”
Jacinda Ardern says it may not be on the factory floor, but before or after shifts or at morning tea breaks.
“If we need to tighten up restrictions further, we will.”
It is widely beleived that a large scale packaging manufacturer in South Aukland, where a sizeable amount of our Kiwi Indians work has been affected.
Around 200 employees working there have received emails to self isolate and get tested, and Indian Weekender is in possession of one such email, shared with us by a concerned reader.
All others, should not be concerned as those potentially exposed, have already been contacted and if you have not been contacted, then there is nothing for you to worry.
The infectiousness of Delta is causing concern about the number of workplaces operating, with at least 73 of the 511 cases in the Delta outbreak are essential workers, it has been confirmed.
MBIE data shows 529,000 people are physically at work under level four and with much of the country heading to level three this week, over a million people may be back in the workplace.
Dr Ashley Bloomfield says at the moment, the key thing is that people at work use masks and maintain a two-metre distance wherever possible.
Today on Sunday, 83 new cases were recorded, which takes the total to 496 in Auckland, 15 in Wellington.
By 10.00am Sunday, health officials had identified 32,000 contacts. Of those, over 80 per cent had been followed up and more than 85 per cent had a test so far.
Applications for workers who need to cross the border between alert levels opened at midday today – but MBIE is warning there will be very strict criteria.