New Zealand faces first Covid-19 delta variant lockdown

SYDNEY. KAZINFORM New Zealand, which confined its more than 5 million residents after detecting a case of Covid-19, faces its first delta variant outbreak after totalling 10 local infections Wednesday.

«Last night's results confirmed it is the delta variant and that it is linked, via genomic sequence, to infections from the New South Wales outbreak (the epicenter of the third wave of covid-19 in Australia),» New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters in Wellington, EFE reports.

Ardern, praised worldwide for her Covid-19 management, ordered Tuesday a three-day confinement in the country, although those in Auckland and the neighboring Coromandel peninsula will be confined for seven days.

This drastic and early measure was adopted after detecting, for the first time in almost six months, the contagion of an Auckland resident, who traveled to Coromandel over the weekend with Covid-19.

Since, nine more infections have been reported, including someone who works in a hospital in Auckland, which has 1.7 million inhabitants and is the country’s most populous city, although experts believe 50 to 120 people could have been infected prior to confinement.