Wellington – New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden extended a lockdown in the country’s biggest city on Friday in response to the first national coronavirus outbreak in months, sticking with a “go early, go hard” approach she said has proven effective.
Arden said genomic testing has shown the latest outbreak is a different strain to the original outbreak in New Zealand earlier in the year, suggesting it was new to the country.
Lockdown measures in Auckland, home to about 1.7 million people, and social distancing measures across the country that were imposed on Wednesday would remain in place for another 12 days.
Her swift reaction follows the discovery on Tuesday of the country’s first Covid-19 infections in 102 days. Officials have identified 29 cases since then.
“As we have said from the start, our overall Covid-19 strategy remains elimination,” Ardern said in a televised media conference. “Together, we have got rid of Covid before. We have kept it out for 102 days, longer than any other country. We can do all of that again.”
