New Zealand’s summertime run without COVID-19 is over, with Auckland heading back into a three-day lockdown after the discovery of three community cases.
On Sunday, Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield announced a mother, father and their daughter had returned positive tests this weekend.
The source of their infection is not yet known.
The cases prompted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to rush from Auckland to the capital to Wellington for an emergency cabinet meeting.
At that meeting, she decided on the snap lockdown as “these new cases pose questions our public health staff are working around the clock to answer”.
“We all feel the same way when this happens. We all have that feeling of ‘not again’,” she said.
“We have stamped out the virus before and we will do it again … we are going to be okay.”
Auckland has been placed at alert level three, with the rest of New Zealand at alert level two – meaning social distancing, caps on gatherings and increased mask-wearing.
The alert levels are due to end at 11:59pm on Wednesday, but will be reviewed daily.
COVID-19 Minister Chris Hipkins said health officials were moving rapidly to trace, test and isolate close contacts of the three new cases.
“There is a number of gaps in our knowledge around these cases,” he said.
Of the three new cases, the mother looms as a likely index case, given she works at a catering company which services planes at Auckland airport.
The father is self-employed in the building industry, and the daughter is a student at Papatoetoe High School, a large school in the south of Auckland.
The school will be closed on Monday and Tuesday.
The new cases come a day after New Zealand’s first COVID-related death in five months.
On Saturday, Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said a person who tested positive for the virus while in mandatory isolation died after being moved to North Shore Hospital in Auckland.
The fatality was New Zealand’s 26th COVID-related death through the pandemic.
While new cases have been identified among international arrivals, Aotearoa has enjoyed a largely COVID-free summer until this outbreak.
Last month, a new community case was identified after her quarantine at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland.
Five positive cases were identified from the Pullman Hotel but authorities controlled the cases without resorting to an alert level change.
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