- New Zealand’s biggest city, Auckland, has gone back into stage three lockdown after four people tested positive to COVID-19
- The city will remain in a three-day lockdown, while the rest of the country has entered stage two lockdown
- The new COVID-19 cases are the first to be recorded in the island nation in over 100 days
- All four mystery cases belong to the same family, which included a 20-year old woman who recently travelled to Rotorua
- Health officials are still working out how the family contracted the potentially deadly virus, with testing underway
- Meanwhile in Australia, Victoria recorded 21 new deaths and 410 new coronavirus cases today
New Zealand has put its biggest city, Auckland, back in lockdown after it recorded its first COVID-19 cases in more than 100 days.
The city has gone into a three-day lockdown after four people tested positive for the virus yesterday.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the news in a late-night press conference on Tuesday.
Who are the mystery cases?
All four of the new coronavirus cases belong to one family who are from South Auckland.
The first case was a person in their 50’s who had no history of international travel. They were tested twice, with both results testing positive.
Following that result, all six members of their immediate family were tested. Three of the family member’s were negative for the coronavirus, but three returned positive results.
All close contacts of the family have now been tested and will remain in isolation for 14 days, regardless of their test results.
While one of the original four new cases, a woman in her 20’s, had recently travelled to Rotorua over the weekend while she had the symptoms. Anyone in the Rotorua area is now being urged to get tested.
Panic buying returns
In Auckland, panic buying has been seen again, as the city heads back into lockdown. Photos and videos have emerged on social media, showing packed trolleys and long queues at supermarkets.
Police are at New Lynn Countdown after people ripped the doors open when security tried to control the amount of people rushing in. That woman is saying she needs food for her kid. This ain’t it Auckland. pic.twitter.com/PDf1Oe26Mx
— Matt Manukia (@MattManukiaTVNZ) August 11, 2020
New Zealand supermarket, Countdown, has told customers to shop normally, as “there is plenty of food and supplies for everyone.”
“Over the next few hours, we’ll be working to bring our Alert Level 3 measures into place in Auckland, and Level 2 measures throughout the rest of the country,” Countdown said in a statement on Facebook.
“This will include physical distancing in our stores, limits on customer numbers, limits on some products, queue control and extra cleaning and hygiene measures,” the company added
What happens next?
New Zealand health officials are still working out how the family contracted the virus, considering no COVID-19 cases had been recorded in the country in months.
“One of the most important lessons we’ve learned from overseas is the need to go hard and go early and stamp out flare-ups to avoid the risk of a wider outbreak,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern explained.
“As a team, we have also been here before. We know if we have a plan and stick to it we can work our way through very difficult and unknown situations,” she added.
The country is preparing to test thousands of people in the coming days. While, health staff are being redeployed to testing centres, quarantine facilities and at the border.
Returning to Australia
Meantime in neighbouring Australia, Victoria has recorded another 21 deaths and 410 new coronavirus cases today.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said 16 of the 21 new deaths are linked to aged care centres across the state.
Premier Andrews also revealeaed a number of COVID-19 cases had been recorded in country Victoria.
“I know it’s tough, I know it’s challenging, I know that we would prefer to be in a different set of circumstances, but even at low numbers, we’ve just got to have that vigilance across-the-board so we can keep them low and, indeed, drive them down even further,” he said.
“It’s really important that each and every regional Victorian stays the course with this,” he added.
Currently, there are 662 Victorians in hospital, 43 of those are in intensive care and 25 on a ventilator.