New Zealand Placed Under Lockdown For A Single Suspected Delta Case

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared a state of emergency in New Zealand after the country’s first coronavirus case in six months was detected in Auckland, the country’s largest city. From Wednesday, all of New Zealand will be in the most severe, level-four lockdown for at least three days. For the next seven days, Auckland and Coromandel, a seaside town where the sick individual also spent time, will be under lockdown.

I ask New Zealanders to please follow the rules to the letter. We know from evidence overseas that the Delta variant can spread just by walking past someone

Jacinda Ardern

New Zealand’s Lockdown Protocol

Schools, offices, and businesses will close and only essential services will be operational. Shoppers crowded supermarkets as news of the new case and the imminent lockdown spread. authorities were assuming the patient, a 58-year-old man from Auckland who was not identified, had contracted the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 although genome sequencing was yet to be completed.

New Zealand has been successful in eliminating the virus from within its borders, although its international borders remain largely closed. The Auckland Regional Public Health unit is interviewing the patient for contact-tracing purposes and COVID-19 vaccinations suspended for at least 48 hours. The New Zealand dollar tumbled on the announcement, falling 1.5% to $0.6926 after the lockdown was announce. The last reported community case of COVID-19 in New Zealand was in February. Its citizens have been living without restrictions although international borders have largely remained closed.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is widely expected to raise interest rates on Wednesday. But one bank, Westpac, said it now expected the central bank to keep the official cash rate (OCR) unchanged.