Two new cases of COVID-19 have been reported today, along with one further death.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said one of the new cases has been confirmed as COVID-19 following testing of a Marist College student in Auckland. This student had been in isolation since March 20. They had been contacted during the first week of April as part of the contact tracing process but had not been tested at that time because no symptoms were showing. It was not fully understood why this student had now tested positive, but it was almost certainly late in the course of the infection and they were unlikely to be infectious at this stage. Nevertheless, the student would remain in isolation.

The second new case was a household contact of a known case who was being treated as a probable case because they were symptomatic, despite a negative test.

New Zealand’s 21st COVID-19 death is a woman in her 60s who was a resident of the Rosewood rest home in Christchurch. She was not one of the group that had been transferred to Burwood Hospital but had been treated as a probable case.

The total number of reported COVID-19 cases in New Zealand is 1488, of which 1138 have been confirmed. 88% of all cases are now considered recovered.

Two people are currently in hospital, both in the North Island and neither of them in intensive care.

There have been no changes to the COVID-19 figures in the Southern District Health Board region which stands at 216 total cases (205 now recovered) and two deaths.

There have been 3,517,345 confirmed cases worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation – 81,454 of those were reported in the previous 24 hours. There have been 243,401 deaths (3797 in the previous 24 hours).