New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Friday extended a lockdown in the country’s largest city, giving health authorities more time to trace and contain a new outbreak. Ardern said stay-at-home orders would remain in force across Auckland until August 26 in a bid to prevent a mystery outbreak from becoming a full-blown second wave. Genomic tests indicated the latest infections were not the same strain of coronavirus recorded in New Zealand earlier this year. “This suggests it’s not a case of the virus being dormant, or of burning embers in our community, it appears to be new to New Zealand,” Ardern said. She added that tests were also unable to link the outbreak to any cases among quarantined travellers from overseas. Since four people tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday – the first cases of community transmission in 102 days – New Zealand has now detected a cluster of 30 cases. Amid speculation that the virus could have been brought in via freight, Ardern said the source of the strain may never be found. But she said it was likely the outbreak had been detected early and expressed hope that it could still be held back. “We don’t necessarily need to answer that question in order to contain and deal with this cluster effectively,” she said. Health Minister Chris Hipkins said almost 16,000 people had been tested on Thursday, with frontline workers at ports and isolation facilities now having to undergo mandatory testing. South Korea also reported a rise in infections, with 103 new coronavirus cases on Friday, one of its biggest daily jumps in months, prompting authorities to worry about growing infection clusters . Of the new cases, 83 were from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where health authorities have struggled to stem transmissions linked to churches, nursing homes, schools and workplaces. Infections were also reported in other major cities such as Busan, Gwangju and Ulsan. The new infections also included 85 cases of local infection, the most since March 31. The country’s caseload is now almost 15,000, the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said. South Koreans put cash in washing machines, ovens to rid it of virus “The trend of domestic infections is worrisome,” Prime Minister Chung Se-kyun said. “If the situation becomes a bit worse, we have to consider raising the level of social distancing to stage 2 in the Seoul metropolitan area.” South Korea reported between 20 and 40 daily cases earlier this month but the number spiked this week. South Korea is currently under Stage 1 restrictions, which allows social gatherings and the use of public facilities provided people wear masks and observe other hygiene rules. Under Stage 2 restrictions, indoor gatherings of 50 people and outdoor gatherings of 100 people would be prohibited and all public facilities would be shut down. Chung called for greater vigilance during a three-day holiday that continues until Monday and criticised plans by some activist groups to hold rallies in Seoul on the weekend. South Korea has so far weathered its Covid-19 pandemic without major economic lockdowns, although officials shut schools until May and temporarily closed entertainment venues in some major cities when infections rose. Health authorities have instead relied on aggressive testing and contact tracing, with visitors to entertainment outlets like nightclubs deemed “high risk” required to register via smartphone QR codes so they can be easily traced if needed. In a major North Korean city near the border with South Korea, the country’s leader Kim Jong-un lifted a lockdown that had kept thousands quarantined for weeks, state media reported on Friday. But Kim said the North would keep its borders shut and rejected any outside help for its aggressive anti-virus campaign and efforts to rebuild thousands of houses, roads and bridges damaged by heavy rain and floods in recent weeks. Kim said it was clear after three weeks that the virus situation in Kaesong was stable and expressed gratitude to residents for cooperating with the lockdown, the KCNA said. In late July, Kim ordered a total lockdown of Kaesong and had the nation shift into a “maximum emergency system” after the North claimed of finding a person with Covid-19 symptoms. The North’s state media said the suspected patient was a North Korean who had earlier fled to the South before slipping back into Kaesong. But South Korean health authorities say the 24-year-old had not tested positive in South Korea and never had contact with any known virus carrier. North Korea later said the person’s test results were inconclusive and still maintains it is virus-free, a status widely doubted by outsiders. In Australia, an inquiry found authorities in New South Wales state had made “unjustifiable” and “inexcusable” mistakes which allowed cruise ship passengers with Covid-19 to disembark in central Sydney. The Carnival Corp-owned Ruby Princess was, for a time, Australia’s biggest single source of infection, with more than 600 cases and over 20 deaths directly linked to those passengers, the report said. Some 2,700 passengers, 120 of whom were feeling unwell, were allowed to leave the ship on March 19, helping spread the virus across the country and internationally. State of disaster and curfew declared in Australia’s virus-hit Victoria New South Wales Health failed to ensure the ship knew of heightened screening for the virus or ensure that sick passengers were isolated in their cabins, a report by the inquiry concluded. The 315-page report did not make formal recommendations and stopped short of calling for government resignations. Carnival Corp said the report confirmed that none of its employees misled Australian authorities, which was “of great importance to us because it goes to the integrity of our people”. “In our more than 20 years in Australia, we have always sought to cooperate honestly and professionally with officials in accordance with the regulatory environment,” said Jan Swartz, president of Carnival’s Princess Cruises unit. In Vietnam, which is fighting a new coronavirus outbreak, the health ministry has registered to buy a Russian Covid-19 vaccine, state television reported on Friday. The country would still continue developing its own vaccine though, the ministry added. Russia on Wednesday said the first batch of the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine would be rolled out within two weeks, rejecting as “groundless” the safety concerns aired by some experts over Moscow’s rapid approval of the drug. In Indonesia, several volunteers have received their doses for the potential coronavirus vaccine developed by state-owned enterprise Bio Farma and Chinese company Sinovac BioTech. Indonesia recruited 1,620 volunteers and the Indonesia President Joko Widodo said the country hopes to produce the vaccine by next year. Called CoronaVac, the potential vaccine uses an inactivated pathogen, meaning the virus is grown in a lab and then deactivated or killed. In June, the company announced that no severe adverse side effects had resulted from the phase 1 and 2 trials conducted in volunteers in China. The firm is also planning clinical trials with thousands of volunteers in India, Brazil and Bangladesh. Tokyo on Friday reported 389 new coronavirus cases, the highest figure in about one week, with urban and tourist areas in Japan continuing to see a relatively large number of infections during the peak of the summer holiday season. To prevent the spread of the virus, Governor Yuriko Koike urged Tokyoites to avoid travelling or returning to their hometowns during the holidays. Reporting by AP, Reuters, Bloomberg, AFP, Kyodo