Coronavirus: Auckland in snap lockdown after UK strain found; Australia suspends travel bubble
- Tests found two Covid-19 infections were caused by the highly contagious UK strain, as officials investigate how it arrived in New Zealand
- Meanwhile, Australia has suspended a travel bubble with its neighbour, and has received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine
New Zealand’s health ministry said tests had identified that the infections in Auckland were caused by the highly contagious variant first found in the UK, with no link to any other positive cases detected so far in New Zealand.
“This result reinforces the decision to take swift and robust action around the latest cases to detect and stamp out the possibility of any further transmission,” the ministry said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ordered a three-day lockdown for almost two million Auckland residents from Monday, with schools and non-essential businesses forced to close. No new infections had been detected beyond the initial cluster of three cases in one family, but health officials are rushing to find out how the virus entered the country.
New Zealand director general of health, Ashley Bloomfield, said the initial focus was on the mother’s workplace – a company providing laundry services to international flights – “because of its obvious connections to the border”. But he cautioned it was “too soon to rule in or out” any source of transmission and the woman had not been at work for eight days before testing positive.
As tracing and testing ramped up, the streets of central Auckland were largely empty on the first day of the lockdown, with torrential rain helping to discourage people from venturing outdoors. Covid-19 testing centres were busy, though, and there were long lines of vehicles stopped at police roadblocks as people tried to leave the city despite the lockdown.