New Zealand officials yesterday confirmed the first case of COVID-19 in the community for more than two months, sparking urgent contract-tracing efforts north of Auckland.
A 56-year-old woman who recently returned from Europe tested positive 10 days after completing a compulsory two weeks in managed isolation, although she had noticed symptoms several days before being tested.
Contact tracing was under way after it was revealed the woman and her husband spent several days traveling around the Northland region while she was potentially infectious, visiting about 30 different locations.
Photo: AFP
New Zealand Minister of Health Chris Hipkins said that it was too soon to decide whether a full or partial lockdown would be reintroduced.
“We don’t know the origin or the strain of the infection,” he told a news conference.
The woman returned to New Zealand on Dec. 30 last year after spending four months in Europe — mainly in Spain and the Netherlands — and was released from an Auckland quarantine hotel on Jan. 13.
New Zealand Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said that she had returned two negative tests while in isolation, and her husband had not shown any symptoms.
It marks the first known case of community transmission in New Zealand since Nov. 18.
Authorities are reviewing closed-circuit television footage to see if the woman contracted the virus while in the managed isolation facility. More than 600 people who had been in the hotel have been asked to self-isolate and be retested for COVID-19.
New Zealand has been widely praised for its handling of the pandemic, with just 25 deaths from 2,283 confirmed virus cases in a population of 5 million.
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