New Zealand has recorded 13 new cases of coronavirus in the past day, health officials said Sunday, as the country maintains new restrictions amid a sudden outbreak of Covid-19.
Of the new cases, 12 were in the Auckland community, with none recently traveling outside the region. All had close links to the existing outbreak; two of the new cases belonged to the same household as a previously confirmed patient.
The remaining case is a child in managed isolation who arrived from Afghanistan in early August.
New Zealand has recorded 1,271 confirmed cases since the pandemic began, health authorities said. It currently has 61 active cases, of which 49 were transferred locally and 20 were imported from abroad.
Auckland under lockdown: On Friday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that Auckland – the city of some 1.5 million people at the center of the new outbreak – will remain below a level three lockdown for another 12 days, while the rest of the country will remain below level two restrictions, meaning meetings are limited to a maximum of 100 people.
The rules extend restrictions that came into effect earlier this week.
Just five days earlier, New Zealand had set an enviable milestone – 100 days without any communications. But this week demonstrated how hard that can change, even in a country that was held as a world leader for its treatment of the virus.
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