The Ministry has received results from ESR from the wastewater samples collected from the Wellington region.
These new samples were collected from Moa Point, Porirua, Hutt Valley and Karori following two earlier samples from Moa Point returning weak positive results.
The further samples tested from Moa Point and Hutt Valley did not detect any virus fragments across 15,16 and 17May.
Weak positive results have been detected in the samples from Porirua and Karori on 16 May. The samples from Porirua and Karori on 15 and 17 May returned negative results – so COVID-19 virus fragments were not detected on those days.
Additional samples were collected on Tuesday 18 May and the Ministry expects to be able to provide an update on the results from those tests on Thursday 20 May.
There is no risk of infection from COVID-19 in wastewater.
The Ministry's current assessment remains that the weak positive results are likely due to recently recovered cases continuing to shed the virus.
