WELLINGTON – New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Saturday that the country’s largest city, Auckland, would start in a seven-day lockout early Sunday morning after a new local case of the coronavirus of unknown origin emerged has.
It comes two weeks after Auckland’s nearly 2 million residents were plunged into a rapid three-day lockdown when a family diagnosed the more transmissible variant of the coronavirus.
Health officials, who could not immediately confirm how the person was infected, said the genome sequence of the new infection was underway.
The patient developed symptoms on Tuesday and has been considered contagious since Sunday, officials said. The person visited several public places during the period.
“Based on this, we are in the unfortunate but vital position of protecting Aucklanders again,” Ardern said, announcing the closure.
Health authorities were trying to find out if the new case was linked to the earlier February group, now on 12 infections.
The exclusion, with Level 3 restrictions, would allow people to leave home only for essential shopping and essential work, Ardern said.
Public venues will remain closed. Restrictions in the rest of the country will be tightened to Level 2 restrictions, including restrictions on public gatherings.
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New Zealand, one of the most successfully developed countries to control the spread of the pandemic, has seen just over 2000 cases of coronavirus since the onset of the pandemic.
A tent 20-something cricket clash in Auckland between New Zealand and Australia, scheduled for Friday, is being played without crowds in Wellington, New Zealand Cricket said.
The new restrictions also hampered the America’s Cup Event yacht race, which was due to begin on March 6 in Auckland Harbor. America’s Cup Event said on Twitter he was working “by the implications.”