New Zealand Reports 4 New Coronavirus Cases After 102 Days Of Zero Local Transmission

 

Image Credit – Global News

 

After being free of local Coronavirus transmission for 102 days, New Zealand has reported four new cases of the COVID-19 in Auckland. The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern has confirmed the news on Tuesday.

She stated that the largest city of the country, Auckland will be on high alert of level 3 from midday of Wednesday through midnight of Friday to control the transmission. An Alert Level 3 requires the citizens to remain at their homes and bars and many other businesses to remain shut down.

Ardern explained in an urgently called news conference on Tuesday that these three days will provide them time to assess the situation and gather information so that the authorities can trace the origin of the transmission and figure out how it happened. They will be deciding on their response process once they get further information.

She stated that though the repetition of the transmission is hard to receive, they were prepared for it. And as a team, they have been in the situation before.

Traveling into Auckland will be prohibited unless someone is a residence of there, she added.

He further said that the other parts of the country will be put under Level 2 Alert through Friday. Level 2 prohibits mass gathering over 100 and social distancing norms will be enforced once again.

Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield informed that a person in their 50s from an Auckland household went to the doctor with some symptoms on Monday and his swab test came positive twice. Six other people of the same household were tested and three of them were confirmed positive.

She added that the person had no prior history of overseas travel. So the origin of the infection is still unknown.

Before these cases surfaced, the 22 active cases of Coronavirus in the country were of the people who recently returned from foreign countries and were put under quarantine at the border.

As the whole world is struggling to contain the disease, New Zealand made tremendous progress in controlling the infection by imposing a strict lockdown in late March when the positive cases were only 100.

This method had let them return to normalcy very quickly. The South Pacific nation of 5 million enjoyed social gatherings in games, theatres, and restaurants while the entire globe was under lockdown.

But with four new cases, the country again faces the fear all over again. The authorities are urging people to take precautions like wearing a mask and sanitizing frequently to tackle the new wave of transmission.

The outbreaks concern the government as New Zealand is going to hold their general election in less than six weeks.

      

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