New Zealand is preparing to test “tens of thousands” of people as its coronavirus scare spreads to a second city, hours before Auckland goes into a three-day lockdown.
Director-general of health Ashely Bloomfield said one of the four people who had tested positive for COVID-19 – a woman in her 20s – had visited the tourist city of Rotorua while infectious at the weekend.
“We are working with urgency to find out what places the family may have visited while in Rotorua over the weekend,” Dr Bloomfield said on Wednesday.
“But the important thing here – people in Rotorua and around the country should be vigilant about their health and seek advice if they have symptoms.”
Positive coronavirus tests in the four family members were revealed in an urgent public briefing late on Tuesday night. They are the first mystery cases of the virus in New Zealand for more than 100 days.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern immediately announced that greater Auckland would return to a “level three” lockdown from midday on Wednesday (local time). The rest of NZ will go to “level two” measures, which include caps on gatherings.
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More than a million Aucklanders will be required to stay home unless they are conducting essential work or essential personal movement – such as supermarket shopping, health care or exercise. Police will set up checkpoints around the city, and authorities are working on orders to make masks mandatory.
The lockdown, which will allow health officials to contact trace, isolate potential cases and conduct mass testing, will last at least until midnight Friday.
“We are prepared to test tens of thousands of people in coming days to see if there are cases of COVID-19 our community,” Dr Bloomfield said.
He said all close contacts of the four infected people had been isolated, and their workplaces had been shut down. All co-workers will be tested for the virus, as will the workplaces themselves.
“We want to see if possibly the environment is implicated here,” he said.
Genomic sequencing is also being used to try to track the origins of the positive tests. NZ had previously declared itself free of COVID-19 after one of the world’s toughest lockdowns.
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On Tuesday night, Ms Ardern appealed for calm as lengthy, sometimes disorderly, queues formed outside Auckland supermarkets within an hour of the lockdown being announced.
“There will be ample stock on the shelves, there is no reason to go out and make any purchases this evening,” she said.
“I know that this information will be very difficult to receive,” she said.
“We had all hoped not to find ourselves in this position again but we had also prepared for it.
“As a team we have also been here before. We know if we have a plan and stick to it we can work our way through very difficult and unknown situations.”
All of the country’s aged-care centres have also been put in an immediate lockdown, with only staff and essential deliveries permitted.
-with AAP
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