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NEW ZEALAND HAS extended a lockdown of its largest city Auckland by at least 12 days, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today, as authorities struggle with a growing new coronavirus outbreak.
“Cabinet has agreed to maintain our current settings for an additional 12 days, bringing us to a full two weeks in total,” Ardern said.
The outbreak has spread beyond Auckland, health officials said, in a major blow to efforts to contain the disease.
Health Minister Chris Hipkins said there were 12 more cases of community transmission, and one probable, following the shock re-emergence of the virus in Auckland this week.
He said two of the infections were found in the North Island town of Tokoroa, around 210km south of Auckland.
The infections outside Auckland come despite a strict lockdown in New Zealand’s largest city, including masked police blocking roads to seal its borders.
It has resulted in around 30 people from Tokoroa who were in close contact with the infected pair being taken into quarantine and tested.
Hipkins played down fears that the failure to ring-fence infections to Auckland meant the virus could now be rampant elsewhere.
“All of the cases so far are connected, they are all part of one Auckland-based cluster, that’s good news,” he said, adding that the Tokoroa cases were identified quickly.
“We’ve seen no evidence of a COVID-19 case outside of Auckland that is unrelated to the cluster we are dealing with.”
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is set to announce later Friday whether Auckland’s lockdown will be extended, and whether the area affected by the restrictions should be enlarged beyond the city.
The crisis erupted when four family members in Auckland returned positive tests on Tuesday, ending New Zealand’s run of 102 days with no reported community transmission.
Case numbers in the cluster have continued to rise — climbing to 30 by Friday — as health authorities desperately scramble to find the source of the infection.
“That’s a that’s still a piece in the puzzle we’re trying to fill,” national health director-general Ashley Bloomfield said.
‘Completely unacceptable’
In just four days, New Zealand has gone from a transmission-free haven to contemplating national lockdown.
Bloomfield said feelings were running high but urged the public not to take out their frustrations on frontline health workers.
“We’ve had reports of healthcare workers, who are doing their best to provide testing for people, being verbally abused and even attacked,” he said.
“This is completely unacceptable,” he added, declining to provide further details.
New Zealand is following the same strategy that helped contain the virus after a seven-week lockdown earlier this year — isolating positive cases, tracing their contact and testing extensively.
Hipkins said swabs were taken from almost 16,000 people on Thursday alone.
The government is making testing mandatory for frontline workers at ports and isolation facilities after reports that most staff at Auckland airport had never been checked for the virus.
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Problem is that the DUP see themselves as British. They are Irish born on the island of Ireland and even qualify for an Irish passport. They are Irish. Terrified at the thought of being seen as Irish! Their “mainland” sees them as an Irish problem and are dying to get rid of them. 65% of the north voted to remain but the DUP are trying to drag the population into a mess.
@Dave Phelan: very well said and factually correct…..I wonder what, if any, ideas proposals etc the poisonous DUP have suggested/submitted as a way of solving this as opposed to disagreeing with everything and sitting on their arses drawing salaries and cannot even agree to co-govern the six counties….
@Dave Phelan: Doesn’t the GFA give each and all natives of Northern Ireland the right to choose between British and Irish nationality?
If they consider themselves British then they’re British.
The veto which Unionists have had supporting the Conservatives on any kind of deal, even one that allowed them to “Divorce and go back at weekends for conjugal rights” meaning one which any other European country would have snapped the offer at once.. the stubbornly refused. What do they care if the no deal Brexit brings unemployment, misery to their dairy industry which would be deviated the chances of violence being given the excise it needs to return is very real .. but even if Northern Ireland whose majority voted to remain in the EU Even if the Unionists block every deal but a clean break and reduce their brothers in the Northern half of this country to living in an economic wasteland the Unionist MPs responsible will still get re-elected whatever disaster they bring down.
Too used to being in the position of power to understand what it is to concede. This will drag out into next year after Boris quits leaving the 4th Prime Minister to deal with BREXIT. Elections will see the DUP thrown under the bus in any negotiations.
It would certainly solve it, at least in the short term until “alternative arrangements” can be found. But it won’t happen because there are too many idiots in politics up north and in BJs cabinet. The best solution would be for Britain and the EU to come together and decide that a new treaty of Europe can be come up with over the next x amount of years and that will address the concerns of the British people, which in fairness are concerns of many Europeans, including pro EU people like myself. And Britain withdraws article 50 based on this. This would be a win for almost everyone.
When Teresa May made the comment re the Back Stop “No British Prime Minister could ever agree to that” She showed her lack of Knowledge of Irish/British relationship.The most famous of all British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill offered a United Ireland to DeValera if he would enter the Second World War on the side of Britain.DeValera declined but the Unionist Leader Craig was flabbergasted and deemed it a gross act of treachery.
Paul Connolly
@Paul Connolly: You are correct that Churchill did indicate that if Dev could give back control of the ports to the British for to use during the war and support the UK then after the war then they could ‘discuss’ the question of Northern Ireland. But this was so relatively soon after Ireland had secured Independence – so soon after the wounds of Civil War and so opportunistic by a British Prime minister that it smacked exactly as all the other British promises had going back to the debates in UK about Home Rule – not to mention the fact that Churchill would almost certainly not been able to actually deliver by getting that approval of Unionists and the Uk parliament….so Dev was quite correct not to bite ( imagine the reaction in ireland if he had – we are giving the british the ports back but is ok lads in a fews after the war they promise to discuss the North ? And what happened to Churchill after the war ? Quelle supris ??? He was chucked out of power and most certainly couldn’t have delivered the ‘Nation Once Again’ he suggested after a few whiskies when he desperately needed the Irish ports !! Now the rest of the EU and the world can see how the British handle the North – as we Irish have seen for hundreds of years – with disdain as they always use it for power struggles in Westminster. Nothing much has changed there in hundreds of years in the attitude to Ireland.
And the key to that is Arlene or at-least it was when May was shilling her deal.
I don’t know what a backstop is …..
Is this still one closer step to a united Ireland I wonder ?
If Ian Paisley was capable of living with the idea of the people (Unionist community) of NI as British, while the cattle are Irish, I can’t see why that logic cannot be extended to goods and services. The electricity used by most DUP voters is Irish (from the Republic), and I haven’t noticed any DUP voters going off grid in protest, to protect the Union.
Have Scotland also wanted this solution extended to them ?
@Furze: Does Scotland run the risk as Northern Ireland does of the Good Friday Agreement being destroyed and sinking into a quagmire of violence ?. If it does then we can apply it to Scotland as well
@Furze: this is the issue which everyone seems to ignore,the SNP, have said that they will demand a similar deal to NI, and would be quite within their rights to do so,as this was never envisaged in any brexit deal it would be likely to scupper any agreement that was reached and would be seen as the road to independence by the majority of Scots who voted against devolution.this could precipitate an Ulster situation on the British mainland whichever would be a disaster for the UK.
@Bryen O Murchu: Scotland might be part of a union under one crown, but they are still a country in their own right. If they elect to go their own way (either with similar conditions to a Northern Ireland backstop or full independence) then ultimately you can’t stop them, just like the Europeans can’t stop the UK leaving the European Union. You can’t have it both ways.
if Bojo offers the DUP a few extra billion every year and a change of name for the back stop. They will see it as a way to move forward. Bojo will get a deal with the EU and come back to the UK having negotiated a deal and get it passed through parliament
have your say