Red Beach was added to the Auckland Covid-19 ‘suburbs of interest’ by the Ministry of Health last week.
This meant that residents of that suburb were encouraged to get a test, whether or not they have symptoms.
People wasted no time lining up to get tested at a pop up site in Ōrewa’s Victor Eaves Reserve – in two days, 1201 were tested there.
Although there are currently no specific locations of interest named within Red Beach, or the Hibiscus Coast, the Ministry advises that a household in this general area has three cases and this led to naming Red Beach as a suburb of interest. Information to date suggests that the household members adhered to alert level guidelines.
Investigations, including whole genome sequencing, to determine links continue. The reasons that suburbs of interest are named include recent cases in a suburb not previously identified, new cases or exposure events in a suburb, suburbs where there are multiple unlinked cases, multiple households with cases in an area, or if it’s considered there may be a risk of undetected transmission in an area.
The Ōrewa pop up testing site will remain open as long as there is demand from the public to be tested there. Its opening hours may change if the current level of demand changes.
