New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says Auckland will be put into a seven-day lockdown from Sunday after a coronavirus community case of unknown origin was recorded.
The rest of New Zealand will be put into level two restrictions that limit public gatherings, among others, she told a news conference on Saturday.
Ms Ardern said the new case, a high school student, currently has no symptoms of the virus.
“The high school student in the household has tested negative for COVID-19 on three separate occasions, and currently has no symptoms for COVID-19,” she said.
“That means we have no current known link for the case discovered this afternoon.”
She said it’s “strongly assumed” that the new case is genomically linked to the South Auckland cluster.
“If we cannot immediately link a case person to person, what we call it an epidemiological link, that is a significant issue, and one, we need to act on.”
Ms Ardern said the rules had not been followed, noting the new case went to the doctor in the afternoon yesterday for a COVID-19 test, followed by the gym.
“People who should have been in isolation, weren’t,” she said.
The case also visited a supermarket and a university.
“These are well populated sites, and given the time that has passed since the onset of the illness, we may well have close context, who are already infected,” Ms Ardern said.
In mid-February, Auckland’s nearly two million residents were plunged into a snap three-day lockdown after a family of three were diagnosed with the more transmissible UK variant of COVID-19.
More to come…
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