Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, held a press conference at 9:20 pm on August 11 with Director General of Health, Dr. Ashley Bloomfield.
Ardern revealed New Zealand had four new confirmed cases of Covid-19 from an unknown origin. The new cases of community transmission come from the same family in South Auckland with no links to overseas travel or isolation facilities.
In response, Ardern announced that Auckland will move into Alert Level 3 and the rest of the country into Alert Level 2 as of midday, August 12.
The area covered by level 3 is the Auckland Super City – from Wellsford in the north to Pukekohe in the south.
The restrictions are currently in place until midnight Friday but are set to be reviewed as the situation develops.
Testing stations will pop up around the country to meet demand and Dr. Bloomfield urged anyone with symptoms to get tested.
Without knowing where these cases came from, Ardern said it was important a precautionary approach was taken.
“One of the most important lessons we’ve learned from overseas is to go hard and go early to stamp out flare ups.
