New Zealand COVID-19 Cluster Raising Questions

C: Kirsten Drew - Unsplash

Speaking in a nationally televised press conference, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said “We can see the seriousness of the situation we are in. It’s being dealt with in an urgent but calm and methodical way.”

As a precaution, the prime minister imposed an Auckland wide lockdown on the city of 1.7 million in response to the latest cases, falling back on a temporary get out of jail term – “things will get worse before they get better”, to help counter her critics, before then adding “(O)nce again we are reminded of how tricky this virus is and how easily it can spread.”

“Going hard and early is still the best course of action” she added without expanding.

Speaking to New Zealand’s Newstalk ZB Radio, Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield said officials were moving “closer every hour” to finding patient zero, adding “We are working flat out to do the contact-tracing we need to do and trace back to find out what the source of this infection is.”

He also underlined the possibility that a freight shipment transmitted into the general populace by a storage worker on the list of newly infected individuals could be considered “a low possibility” of the virus having spiked now.

Lisa Conklin

Lisa is an Eastender from London in her second year in Taipei where she teaches English, and in her spare time writes poetry. She is a practicing vegan and lover of yoga who lives 'off-grid' as much as possible. She is our weekend editor.