New Zealand Delta cases linked to New South Wales outbreak

The New Zealand Prime Minister has pointed to NSW as an example of what not to do in a Covid-19 outbreak.

New Zealand’s growing Delta outbreak has been linked to New South Wales - but Jacinda Ardern says the Sydney response is not one the Kiwis will follow.

The NZ cluster is now at 21 and is expected to grow rapidly after infectious people were in the community, possibly for as long as two weeks.

Two people are in hospital, both in stable conditions.

The outbreak is the country’s first with the feared Delta variant and the first community Covid transmission since February.

Asked “what is your message to people who questioned the need for an alert level four lockdown?’ she replied: “Australia.”

“We’ve seen the dire consequences of taking too long to act in other countries, not least our neighbours.”

“We have seen what can happen elsewhere if we fail to get on top of it. We only get one chance,” she said.

She said New Zealand’s “hard and fast” approach would work better than a “long and light” one.

New Zealand was plunged into a snap three day national lockdown after a mystery case emerged in Auckland on Tuesday.

Auckland would remain at Level 4 - the highest of NZ’s alert levels - for at least a week.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made the lockdown announcement after an emergency Cabinet meeting.

The Sydney experince should be a lesson to Kiwis, Ms Ardern said, and urged them to follow the rules to ensure the outbreak was contained.

“We are better to start high and be cautious and move out as soon as we have the comfort to do so, than start too low and be in that phase for much, much longer.

“We only need to look at Australia to see the alternative.”

The person who tested positive went to their GP yesterday with symptoms, which first appeared on Saturday.

There was no immediate link to the border, New Zealand’s Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said.

The man, who is 58, is not vaccinated but his wife is - and she has tested negative to Covid-19.

The couple had travelled to Coromandel, a popular resort and getaway about 200km away, over the weekend when the man was infectious.

Coromandel would also be in lockdown for at least seven days.

“This is a national issue,” Dr Bloomfield said, adding there were likely more cases.

Ms Ardern has said a “long an dlight” approach to a Covid outbreak was not what NZ would do.

He indicated new cases would involve household links to the existing 10 confirmed cases. Seventy per cent of Australia’s new Delta cases were from household cases, he told NZ’s Newstalk ZB on Thursday.

New Zealand has won widespread praise for its coronavirus response, recording just 26 deaths in a population of five million.

But its vaccine rollout has been less stellar, with only around 24 per cent of the population fully vaccinated.

Auckland has been forced into two brief periods of lockdown since an initial nationwide response last year succeeded in largely halting the virus at the border.

The most recent stay-at-home orders in the city of near two million ended in March.

- with AFP