COVID-19 CASES RISE IN NEW ZEALAND AS CURBS EASED

Wed 01 September 2021:

According to state-run media, New Zealand recorded 75 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, as infections have risen again since the country was hit by the Delta variant of the virus last month.

According to Radio New Zealand, the total number of cases in the current community outbreak has risen to 687 with the latest infections.

The country reported 75 new cases of COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, up from 49 a day earlier. Of those, 74 were in Auckland and one was a household contact in Wellington. The total cases from the current outbreak rose to 687, nearly all in Auckland.

“The latest bounce in numbers is not unexpected,” the Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said at a news conference, adding it was still below the peak daily number.

On Tuesday, the country registered 49 cases, down from 53 the day before.

The first case of the Delta variant was confirmed in New Zealand on Aug. 17 in a tourist who arrived from the Australian state of New South Wales.

After the first domestically transmitted COVID-19 case was revealed in February, authorities placed the entire country on level 4 lockdown.

However, on Tuesday, the government eased the restrictions from level 4 to level 3 for all parts of the country except Auckland, the epicenter of the latest outbreak.

The director general of health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, said on Tuesday the increase was “not unexpected” and noted that during New Zealand’s previous outbreak, case numbers did move up and down somewhat day-to-day, while still tracking down overall.

Bloomfield said that the government’s modelling gave 90% certainty that the reproductive rate – or average number of new people that each case infected – was still below one, “indicating that the number of cases will continue to decline, and we are successfully breaking the chains of transmission”.

Under level 4 restrictions, everyone must stay at home and businesses are closed except for essential services such as supermarkets and pharmacies.

While under the level 3 alert, people stay at home unless they must leave for essential work or service, but businesses are allowed to resume.

New Zealand, which has been praised for its approach to the pandemic, lifted all restrictions in September, and there have been no new cases in the country for seven months.

In a population of around 5 million people, New Zealand has reported 3,645 coronavirus infections and 26 deaths since the outbreak began in 2020.

According to Health Ministry figures, over 2.2 million people have received their initial vaccine doses and over 1.2 million have been fully vaccinated to protect them from the deadly virus.

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