WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand’s government has taken drastic action by putting the entire nation into a strict lockdown after finding a single case of coronavirus infection in the community.
Health officials say the positive case was found in Auckland on Tuesday afternoon and has no known link to outside the country.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern invoked some of the stirring rhetoric she used early in the pandemic by urging the whole population to go hard and early in trying to eliminate the outbreak.
She said Auckland and Coromandel would go into a full lockdown for seven days and the remainder of the country for three days while health experts tried to find the source of the infection.
Ardern has promised a tough approach, including possible lockdowns for any outbreaks of the delta variant as the country continues to pursue a zero-tolerance approach toward the virus.
The last community outbreak in New Zealand was in February and the country has reported just 26 virus deaths since the start of the pandemic.