There are 18 new cases of Covid-19 to report at the border since the Ministry's last update yesterday – five in recent returnees and 13 from the Viking Bay vessel, says the Ministry of Health.

Two crew on board the quarantined vessel had previously been reported as confirmed with the virus.

All 15 affected crew have now been transferred to an onshore quarantine facility in Wellington.

Five crew members remaining on board to maintain the safety of the vessel have returned negative test results to date. They will be subject to additional testing in coming days.

The All of Government response team advise that Maritime Safety provided a dispensation to the vessel to have only five crew on board to meet minimum safety requirements.

'Contingency planning is underway for any further changes in crew numbers,” says a MOH statement.

The All of Government response confirms the Spanish flagged shipping vessel the Playa Zahara has also applied for permission for a change of crew at Port Taranaki.

'There have been reports of a flu-like illness on board, so testing of the ship's crew members is underway by health authorities following its berthing this morning,” says the MOH statement.

'Once testing is complete, the ship will then depart from the onshore quarantine place of inspection and will remain offshore until test results are available tomorrow.

'If the results show there is no evidence of Covid-19 onboard, then the vessel will be granted pratique for a crew change.”

Health authorities have assessed this situation as having a low risk to public health. There are no cases of Covid-19 to report in the community in New Zealand today.

Eight previously reported cases have now recovered and the number of active cases in New Zealand is 43.

Three previously reported cases, from June 25 and 26, have now been deemed as historical.

Since January 1 2021, there have been 90 historical cases, out of a total of 614 cases.

The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border is four.

'Our total number of confirmed cases is 2430,” says a MOH statement.

New border cases in New Zealand

*All three cases are historical.

**As is our standard protocol, any cases detected after day 3 are investigated further, which has determined the case is historical.

***This refers to 13 positive cases detected in surveillance testing of mariners who arrived in Wellington on the Viking Bay vessel on 12 July 2021.

Travel from New South Wales

Quarantine-free travel from New South Wales (NSW) remains paused and managed return flights from Sydney begin today. All travellers on these flights will have to go into managed isolation for 14 days when they arrive in New Zealand. Because of this, travellers from NSW will not be required to return a negative pre-departure test before flying.

Travellers who have been in NSW on or after 10.30pm on June 26 are not permitted to travel back to New Zealand from other parts of Australia. Travel histories will be checked at the airport before flying.

Information about priorities for return flights from NSW and access to managed isolation facilities has been published by United Against Covid-19. It can be found here.

Travellers from all other parts of Australia – who haven't been in NSW since June 26– must have returned a negative pre-departure test to be allowed to enter New Zealand. All travellers must complete a travel declaration.

Testing update

The total number of Covid-19 tests processed by laboratories to date is 2,357,445.

On Monday, 3,478 tests were processed across New Zealand.

The seven-day rolling average is 5,575.

For all testing locations nationwide visit the Healthpoint website.

This testing data does not include the number of tests processed by Waikato DHB. The Waikato data continues to be recorded manually and monitored. The data is expected to be added to the tally in the near future.

The manual data shows Waikato has been processing around 300 tests a day over the last 7 days.

NZ COVID Tracer

NZ COVID Tracer now has 2,894,696 registered user.

Poster scans have reached 304,275,332 and users have created 11,855,843 manual diary entries.

There have been 587,728 scans in the past 24 hours to midday yesterday.