Copyright
Getty Images
New Zealand has reported 14 new Covid-19 cases a day after its largest city, Auckland, went into lockdown again.
The discovery of four newly infected family members earlier this week shocked a country that had not taken on a locally transferred case for more than three months.
Of the new cases, 13 are linked back to this family, while one is a foreign arrival who was in quarantine.
A three-day lockdown was imposed in Auckland on Wednesday.
“We can see the seriousness of the situation we are in,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a news conference.
“It is being handled in an urgent but calm and methodical manner.”
All confirmed cases will now go into quarantine, officials said. Some of their contacts may also be quarantined.
New Zealand was praised internationally for its early response to the pandemic.
Media playback is not supported on your device
It has once again been moved hard to reintroduce strict movement restrictions in Auckland and measures for social distance across the country.
Before Tuesday, New Zealand went 102 days without recording a locally transferred case of Covid-19, one of the few countries to reach such a milestone.
Ms Ardern has also said she expects the outbreak to continue to grow before slowing down.
How did the virus recover in New Zealand?
Health workers race to find the origin of this latest cluster, test family and work contacts of the newly infected.
“We are working flat out to do the tracing we need to do and trace back to find out what the source of this infection is,” National Health Director Ashley Bloomfield told Newstalk ZB radio.
Other countries that have lifted Covid-19 lockdowns after seeing a drop in new cases have also seen infections recur.
- The mysterious reunion of Covid-19 in Vietnam
- How New Zealand went ‘hard and early’ to defeat Covid-19
Vietnam registered 99 days without any transmission from the community before a wave of new infections hit the central city of Da Nang in late July.
Researchers there are also looking for the source of the latest outbreak to help contain the disease.
Some health experts in New Zealand, such as in Vietnam, have suggested that the virus may circulate in the community for a few weeks before the new cases are discovered.
Dr Bloomfield had previously raised the possibility that the virus arrived in a truck in New Zealand if one of the infected family members worked in a storage facility that imports frozen goods.
But on Thursday, he said it was “an empty opportunity” without detailing other potential sources, Reuters reported.
There were now well-known pre-lockdown scenes in Auckland of people rushing to the supermarkets to stock up on food. Local media also reported others in the city waiting times to test for the virus.
The spike in new cases has raised the possibility of an extended lockdown in the city, as New Zealand is just weeks away from a scheduled election.
Ms Ardern is set to announce next steps on the lockdown on Friday and a decision on the interview for Monday.
