Health

New Zealand extends Auckland lockdown

Sydney, Australia, Sep 13 (EFE).- New Zealand on Monday extended the strict lockdown of Auckland for another week due to the persistence of Covid-19 transmission.

Auckland, the country’s most populous city which was confined with the rest of the country in mid-August after a single case of Covid-19 was reported, will remain under national alert level 4 until midnight on Sep. 21, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.

In principle, from then the government will slightly relax the measures imposed to stop the spread of the Delta variant.

The New Zealand authorities will maintain alert level 2 in the rest of the country until next Tuesday, which means respecting social restriction measures and the use of masks.

On Monday, the authorities, whose strategy is to eliminate Covid-19, reported 33 local infections, all of them in Auckland, accumulating more than 600 active cases.

Ardern told reporters in Wellington that she is concerned that cases of unknown origin continue to emerge.

New Zealand, which has one of the slowest vaccination rates of the developed countries, has been recognized worldwide for its effective management of the pandemic, which consisted of closing its borders and carrying out hard and early lockdowns.

It has fully vaccinated 35 percent of its adult population, and has accumulated almost 4,000 cases since the start of the pandemic, including 27 deaths. EFEw

at/tw

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