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AAP: Three new community cases of Covid-19 this weekend will give the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, food for thought as you consider removing restrictions on New Zealand Monday.
The new cases are not linked to the Auckland group that saw Ardern send New Zealand’s largest city into lockdown last month. Instead, health authorities say they are three members of the same household as a man who recently returned to New Zealand but passed quarantine without a positive result.
That man traveled from India to New Zealand on August 27 and completed his mandatory isolation in Christchurch before returning home to Auckland.
Upon developing symptoms, he was tested, and upon a positive result, members of his household were isolated and tested, obtaining the two additional positive results.
It remains to be seen whether the outbreak will spark a new group.
Health authorities have two working theories about how the man brought the virus to the community despite his fifteen days of isolation.
The first theory is that he caught Covid abroad or on his international flight, and had an incubation period above normal, developing symptoms after three weeks. The development of symptoms after more than two weeks is considered rare.
The second theory is that he got infected on his flight from Canterbury to Auckland after completing his isolation. This has prompted contact trackers to contact all the passengers on that Air New Zealand flight.
Genomic testing ruled out a connection to the existing Auckland cluster.
The notion of a new cluster will be of primary concern to Ardern as he considers New Zealand’s alert level settings.
Auckland’s 1.6 million residents suffered a 16-day lockdown after last month’s cases, but are now at alert level two, like the rest of New Zealand, with smaller limits for meetings.
Last week, Ardern pledged to lower those cap sizes for Auckland to remove all restrictions for the rest of New Zealand in the event that the cases “go as is and maintain the containment that we have seen.”
Auckland’s case numbers seem to tick that box, given that there were four community cases last week, compared to 18 the previous week.
Outside of Auckland, no cases have been found in months, except for a few in Tokoroa with established links to Auckland businesses.
The Tokoroa cases also produced two of the three Covid-19 deaths this month, with New Zealand’s total death toll at 25.
New Zealand’s cabinet will meet Monday morning to decide before Ardern announces the decision at a press conference at 1pm NZST.
