There are no new cases of infection of COVID-19 in New Zealand today, the first time in almost six weeks there has not been a single case across within 24 hours
There have been no new cases of the coronavirus within the same 24 hour period, and no more coronavirus patients have died, keeping the death toll in the country at 20.
The total number of cases that were reported in New Zealand is 1487, and there are currently four people in hospital with COVID-19.
Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield has said:
“Clearly these are encouraging figures today but it is just one moment in time,”
“This is the first day we’ve had no new cases and we want to keep it that way.” he continued.
The country had previously stepped down to an alert level of 3, from level 4, and so it is crucial to see if any more cases are reported over the next week in order to support any decisions of moving down to a level 2 alert level.
This news comes after it was announced that COVID-19 had been ‘currently eliminated’ in New Zealand, which resulted in the decision to move down to the level 3 alert phase that allows most businesses in the country will now be able to reopen, including restaurants for takeaways and delivery, but will provide no services that those involve face-to-face contact.
It is reported that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will be attending the Australian cabinet meeting tomorrow, with Bloomfield saying that the Ministry of Health had provided advice for the meeting.
Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, has been in regular dialogue with other leaders amid the COVID-19 pandemic and invited New Zealand’s Prime Minister to join Tuesday’s discussion with state premiers last week.
Australian prime ministers have attended New Zealand’s cabinet meetings before, but Ardern’s move is somewhat unprecedented, speaking on the matter she said:
“It highlights what’s happened with cooperation at the state level and the mutual importance of both countries’ economies to each other,”
This follows both Australia and New Zealand having implemented successful strategies to manage the pandemic in their respective countries, although the lockdown measures put in place in New Zealand, were much more stringent than Australia’s.
Issues likely to be brought up during the cabinet meeting include the Australian Government’s Covidsafe app to assist with contact tracing, as well as a possible travel bubble to be implemented with New Zealand.
Ardern said in late April that community transmission of the coronavirus within the country had ceased, but said that isolated cases would continue to pop up and the nation would continue to stamp out these cases until a vaccine for COVID-19 was found and distributed.
Ashley Bloomfield has said that through vaccinating as many people as possible for the flu in New Zealand, the risk of other strains on the healthcare system lowered, particularly amongst the elderly and vulnerable.
