Plugged in; Day 20

Auckland came out of lockdown at midnight, although with a number of restrictions remaining in place. Community spread has decreased in terms of numbers of new cases, although there are still some new community transmissions found every day. Additionally, there are those found amongst the quarantined arrivals from overseas. The anxiety is that the limits of the connection with the cluster which announced the community spread don't seem to have been reached, and that raises the possibility of another cluster.

There has already been a secondary cluster. One person connected to the first cluster attended a church service, and the second cluster from there has been growing. More of those is something we do not need. Fortunately, there has been no further death due to Covid-19.

This morning I went back to the unit after almost three weeks away, working from home. To be greeted by the information that yesterday we admitted a very unwell man who had arrived from Melbourne only days ago, and was too unwell to be able to remain in quarantine. Our isolation rooms are in the intensive care part of the unit, which is where I work. 

I received a letter from the DHB's Occupational Health service instructing me to continue as I had been for the last 19 days, unless I can work safely without clinical contact. We had to get a replacement for me, as we can no longer have all four senior doctors, their registrars and interns going in and out of ICU and then into the rest of the unit. A psychiatrist who has joined us on secondment from a community centre volunteered to be that replacement. As one of the others is on leave this week, I will work with her registrar, so it all fell into place quite quickly.

Got home and had a half hour jog on which I saw this seeming shed with substantial aerials, seemingly indicating that it is a residence and the resident(s) have at least got TV and the internet.