Recovered COVID patients likely protected for at least six months, study finds

Researchers have identified an antiviral drug which is highly effective against the COVID-19 causing coronavirus, and could have major implications in how future disease outbreaks are managed.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has gone down slightly from five in the week before to four in the past week.

"Should her serology test come back positive, and epidemiological investigations assess that this is a past infection, we will reclassify this as an imported case", it said.

One of the infected cases announced today is linked to shore leave in New Zealand.

In its update on the coronavirus situation here, the Ministry of Health (MoH) said that the Indian national - who did not have any symptoms - was discovered when she took a Covid-19 pre-departure test on Tuesday in preparation for a trip to India.

Another new case arrived from a now unknown location, but came via Singapore on January 29.

A second person who arrived on January 29 had travelled through Singapore and was found positive for Covid in routine day three testing. They were tested to be able to depart this ship, says the MOH. They were now in quarantine in Christchurch.

In the first two weeks of December, the province routinely reported more than 1,600 new cases each day.

The study found that children going back to school probably did not drive the number of cases up in the fall surge, according to the Daily Mail.

The seven-day rolling average up to yesterday is 5342 tests processed.

"We thank all New Zealanders for their efforts to scan, scan, scan".

Another 214 patients are isolated at community facilities.

However, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield and Medsafe Group Manager Chris James will speak to media about plans for New Zealand's Covid-19 at 2.45pm.

The Pullman Hotel is now being emptied of guests, while an investigation continues into identifying the source of the outbreak which saw four people staying on the same floor contract Covid in January.

But they did not include the 13 global mariners staying in a Christchurch managed isolation facility, who were thought to have contracted Covid-19 overseas.