September 14, 2021
Net cast wider to pickup new Covid symptoms
People in parts of Auckland are being asked to take Covid tests even if they don’t have symptoms of the illness.
Since the start of the delta outbreak more than 270,000 people or 16 percent of the Auckland population have been tested.
Health authorities are concerned about a small number of unlinked positive cases where the person has not visited known locations of interest, has not already been identified as a contact of a positive case, and has not always had typical or obvious COVID-19 symptoms.
They want to cast a geographical net around the location of known clusters and unlinked cases by testing more families and household bubbles from seven Auckland suburbs of interest.
Dr Rawiri Jansen from Māori pandemic response group Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā says delta affects more young people, who can be asymptomatic, and there are also different symptoms this time.
“For delta we see some slightly different symptoms, more kind of aches and pains and it can be abdomen pain and nausea. When we started with Covid we were really in respiratory symptoms but delta has kind of shifted the dial on that,” he says.
The suburbs are Mt Eden, Massey in the west, and in the south: Māngere, Favona, Papatoetoe, Ōtara and Manurewa.