WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand's prime minister says authorities have found four cases of the coronavirus in one Auckland household from an unknown source, the first cases of local transmission in the country in 102 days.
Jacinda Ardern says Auckland, the nation’s largest city, will be moved to Alert Level 3 from midday Wednesday through midnight Friday, meaning that people will be asked to stay at home and bars and many other businesses will be closed.
“These three days will give us time to assess the situation, gather information, make sure we have widespread contact tracing so we can find out more about how this case arose and make decisions about how to respond to it once we have further information,” Ardern said at a hastily called news conference late Tuesday.
She said that traveling into Auckland will be banned unless people live there and are traveling home.
She says the rest of the country will be raised to Level 2 over the same time frame. The country has been praised globally for its virus response.