New Zealand Records No New COVID-19 Cases In 24 Hours

In a statement provided by New Zealand’s Ministry of Health, it said they have already identified 16 close contacts of the country’s first case. Fifteen of those people have already tested negative.

New Zealand has no new reported cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.

This is after it confirmed their first case of coronavirus in the community for more than two months.

An additional close contact is awaiting their test result.

A total of 157 staff from the managed isolation facility at Pullman Hotel have been tested, along with 192 guests currently in the facility. Of those, 30 still have test results to come, and all others have returned negative results.

The first case was identified as a 56-year-old woman who was in hotel quarantine for two weeks at Pullman Hotel in Auckland where it is believed that she came into contact with another traveller infected with the South African variant of COVID-19.

She was able to travel throughout the community while infectious for at least nine days after her release from quarantine and visited around 30 venues north of Auckland.

Quarantine-free travel to Australia from this country has been suspended for at least 72 hours because of this.

Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt said their decision to suspend it was because this case was of “significant concern”. They also considered the increased possibility of transmission due to this South African variant.