New Zealand ruled out its largest city on Sunday – after only one family tested positive for COVID-19.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ordered the three-day lockout for Auckland after a couple and their daughter tested positive in the country, virtually eliminating the spread of the infection.
The new community affairs were just four in the past three months – with the closure for the first time in New Zealand in six months.
“We have eliminated the virus before and we will do it again,” Ardern told a news conference in the capital, Wellington.
The restrictions at level 3 require everyone to stay at home except for essential shopping and essential work. It will also force a delay in the America’s Cup sailing regatta.
“Three days should give us enough time to gather further information, conduct large-scale tests and determine if there was wider community transfer,” Ardern said. “We think this is the cautious approach and it is the right thing to do.”
Airlines have been notified because the woman in the infected family works at a catering company, LSG Sky Chefs, where she mostly works in laundry facilities, officials said. She did not board planes.
Her unidentified family was the first confirmed infection since a traveler returning from Europe tested positive on January 24, the first case in two months.
New Zealand, with a population of 5 million, has reported just over 2,330 cases and 25 deaths since the onset of the pandemic.
Scientists are conducting genome sequences to see if they are variants, and also to see if they match any infected passengers, said COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins.
“New Zealand contained COVID-19 better than almost any other country,” Hipkins said of the country, which closed its international borders and imposed strict social distances early in the pandemic.
“But as we have repeatedly said, there is no risk.”
With Post threads