New Zealand has recorded 13 new coronavirus cases from community transmission, two days after a family of four became the country’s first locally-acquired cases in over three months.
The new cases have all been linked to the original four people in Auckland: they’re all either family members, workmates, and those workmates’ family members.
“As we all learnt from our first experience with COVID, once you identify a cluster, it grows before it slows,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.
“We should expect that to be the case here.”
To try and nab this new cluster in the butt as quickly as possible, all 13 new cases, plus the family of four, are being moved into a quarantine facility instead of being told to self-isolate at home.
New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield explained this new quarantine setup would prevent any slip-ups, accidental or otherwise, like we’ve seen in Australia.
“These facilities have been set up specifically and have excellent processes and resources in place to look after people with COVID-19 including health staff on site at all times and it will help us avoid any further inadvertent spread into the community as part of our overall response,” he said.
With Auckland back in Stage 3 lockdown, Ardern also took a very gentle jab at Victoria’s response to the second wave.
“Within six hours of this case, we were informing people of the need to move alert levels and in less than 24 hours Auckland was at level three,” she said.
“Hong Kong, Vietnam and Victoria, which are all managing the re-emergence of COVID, they in some cases waited three to four weeks before implementing restrictions similar to ours.”
That being said, she didn’t confirm if lockdown would be extended beyond the initial three-day limit. Judging by the way things are going, it wouldn’t come as a surprise.
