New Zealand Records 14 New Coronavirus Cases As Auckland Cluster Grows

New Zealand has recorded 14 new cases of coronavirus.

Four members of the same family in South Auckland tested positive earlier this week, ending a 102-day run of no community transmissions.

Since then, health authorities have done a massive contact tracing effort to work out whether any of the family members passed coronavirus onto others.

All but one of the new cases have been traced back to the family, with the other case being a returned traveller from the Philippines.

There are now 36 active cases in the country, who worked so hard to get rid of the pandemic.

PA

Auckland has been plunged into Stage 3 lockdown following the announcement of the first few cases.

People in the country's largest city are now asked to stay at home, large gatherings will be cancelled and banned, non-essential businesses will be closed and the rest of New Zealand will have social distancing restrictions reintroduced.

New Zealand's deputy leader Winston Peters says it's difficult to say how bad this outbreak will be.

He told Today: "We don't know how far it's spread in the last 24 hours. We don't know how wide the spread is, whether it's dispersed outside of Auckland and whether we have a fix on all the cases.

"It is one of those in-between times. We need to know the research and the evidence and we don't have it yet.

"We have to grit our teeth. It is not about the politicians or anyone else. It is about five million New Zealanders. We have to get our team together and that has to be our number one focus."

Since the global pandemic started earlier this year, New Zealand has been held up as an example of how to deal with the devastating disease, with just 22 deaths recorded from Covid-19.

After reaching the milestone of 100 days without a single case of the virus at the weekend, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield warned that the disease can return at any moment.

In a statement, he said: "Achieving 100 days without community transmission is a significant milestone, however, as we all know, we can't afford to be complacent.

"We have seen overseas how quickly the virus can re-emerge and spread in places where it was previously under control, and we need to be prepared to quickly stamp out any future cases in New Zealand."

Topics: News

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie