WELLINGTON: New Zealand Prime Minsiter Jacinda Ardern on Sunday announced a three-day lockdown in the country’s biggest city Auckland, after three new local COVID-19 cases were reported, the first local infections since late January.
Ardern said the level 3 restrictions, which require everyone to stay home except for essential shopping and essential work, repeating the super cautious approach the country has taken over the past year in virtually eliminating the pandemic.
“We have stamped out the virus before and we will do it again…,” Ardern said in a news conference in Wellington.
New Zealand, which had gone more than two months without local infections before the January case, is to start inoculating its 5 million people against the new coronavirus on Feb. 20, after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine earlier than anticipated.
Restrictions were raised to level 3 for three days from Monday through Wednesday. That meant public venues would be shut, gatherings outside…