Covid-19: Another unrelated case is positive at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland

Another person has tested positive for Covid-19 after going to Middlemore Hospital in Auckland without any symptoms of the virus, the sixth such case in a little less than two weeks.

The person was among 13 new cases reported Thursday by Chief Health Officer Dr Ashley Bloomfield and was the only one still linked to a cluster.

The person went to the Middlemore emergency room without any symptoms of Covid-19, but was swabbed as part of larger tests underway at the hospital, Bloomfield said.

It comes as a mobile Covid-19 swab team has been deployed to hospital wards to provide opportunistic testing to newly admitted asymptomatic patients.

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Bloomfield said the person was being interviewed on Thursday and any places of interest would be posted on the Department of Health’s website.

Manukau DHB County Chief Medical Officer Dr Pete Watson said on Thursday that the mobile team was dabbing patients in wards in the morning and emergency patients in the afternoon, once the decision was made to them. admit.

Watson said they weren’t going to “bed clean every patient in the hospital,” but at this point they were focusing on newly admitted asymptomatic people, starting with adult medical and surgical wards.

The testing did not replace Covid screening and the existing processes already in place for patients, and anyone suspected of having been exposed to the virus has taken a “completely different path,” he said.

It wasn’t mandatory either, “but we encourage everyone to come up with a test to take it,” he said.

“This team is simply offering surveillance tests to patients who could normally go to their local community testing center for a test, but cannot because they are in the hospital.”

This is the sixth instance since early September where a person arrived at the hospital with no known exposure to Covid-19, no symptoms and had not been to a place of interest, only to test positive.

Over the weekend, the Department of Health revealed three people had visited Middlemore on Friday and Saturday before testing positive for the virus, included a woman who attended the delivery assessment unit and a 5-month-old baby.

In an interview with Thing this weekWatson said the series of positive cases had led to a “demanding” and “difficult” time for the hospital, requiring the withdrawal of staff and others regularly swabbed as a precaution.

“Being the hospital located in South Auckland, it’s pretty clear why we are seeing people who have Covid. We are their hospital. he said at the time.

While the news about the recent cases may be concerning, Watson said the hospital was safe and urged people not to delay seeking medical treatment.