Officials are also very eager to figure out how COVID-19 started spreading again within the Auckland community.
New Zealand rushed to track the source of a sudden return of the Thursday as the number of new cases in its biggest city rose to 17. Officials warned that more infections were inevitable. National health chief Ashley Bloomfield said there were 13 new confirmed infections in Auckland, all linked to four family members found on Tuesday, ending the country’s record of 102 days without community transmission. The raised the prospect that a three-day lockdown imposed in Auckland since midday Wednesday would be extended as teams of health workers hunted for the cluster’s origin and ramped up testing in the city. Bloomfield said among the new cases was a student at one of New Zealand’s largest high schools, attended by more than 3,000 children.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there were likely to be more cases linked to the recent spike. «As with our first outbreak, things will get worse before they get better,» she said in a televised address. Ardern was encouraged by the fact that all the cases so far were in a single cluster limited to Auckland.
