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New Zealand imposes 12-working day lockdown in Auckland as it battles fresh Covid-19 outbreak
On Friday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern introduced that Auckland — the town of close to 1.5 million men and women at the centre of the new outbreak — will continue to be beneath a amount three lockdown for one more 12 days, while the relaxation of the place stays below amount two limits, meaning gatherings are restricted to no far more than 100 people today. The principles extend limits that arrived into outcome before this week.
Underneath level 3 constraints, men and women will be advised to continue to be dwelling aside for vital particular motion, schools will function at restricted ability, and community venues these kinds of as museums, playgrounds and fitness centers will stay shut.
The fresh outbreak is a blow for New Zealand. The place already spent five weeks underneath just one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, which shut most corporations and faculties, and noticed individuals stay at dwelling.
Ardern has warned she expects to see more instances.
“Lifting constraints now and observing an explosion of cases is the worst issue we could do for Auckland and for the New Zealand economic system,” she claimed. “We have bought rid of Covid prior to … We can do all of that again.”
In a push meeting Friday, Bloomfield reported that 771 near contacts of the verified cases had been determined, and extra than 15,700 assessments had been processed on Thursday — the greatest variety of exams processed in a single working day in the region.
Due to the fact the commence of the outbreak, New Zealand has conducted additional than 500,000 assessments. It has reported a whole of 1,251 coronavirus conditions, including 22 deaths.
What caused the outbreak?
There is continue to a significant, unanswered issue: How did this outbreak come about?
So significantly, authorities have not found a match between the genome included in this most current outbreak and any instances in managed isolation facilities. Bloomfield explained the new conditions most carefully resemble the genome designs from the United Kingdom and Australia.
Bloomfield thinks the outbreak could have appear in as a result of the isolation facilities fairly than remaining in existing for months in New Zealand.
“I feel there is certainly really excellent proof to counsel that it hasn’t been lurking in the group,” he reported. Ardern mentioned Friday that the strain in the new outbreak is not the very same as one particular that beforehand existed in New Zealand.
Authorities are also screening samples from surfaces at Americold, an American temperature-controlled warehouse firm exactly where just one of the first 4 to test constructive worked. A range of cases have been connected to the business.
But Ardern reported that, for now, authorities did not know how the outbreak happened.
“We do not automatically have to have to answer that problem to offer with this cluster proficiently,” she said.
How New Zealand compares
New Zealand’s fresh outbreak has drawn parallels with Australia and Hong Kong — equally sites that imposed rigorous border measures when they experienced lower an infection numbers and appeared to have the virus under manage, only to knowledge a reemergence of the virus.
On Thursday, Ardern famous that New Zealand experienced imposed limits inside 24 hours of the initially new local community coronavirus scenarios — a reaction which she mentioned was more rapidly than in Hong Kong or Victoria.
“The pace and pace ought to also act as an added layer of reassurance,” she claimed Thursday, before reiterating the mantra she has been declaring given that the commence of the outbreak: “Likely really hard and early is even now the finest course of action.”
CNN’s Isaac Yee contributed to this story.
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