New Zealand will go into a national lockdown on Tuesday night, after detecting one case of Covid-19. New Zealand has not had a level 4 lockdown in more than a year, and the case is believed to be the first Delta in-community transmission. Ardern said New Zealand would not know if the case was Delta until its genome was sequenced – but that the government would be working under that assumption until informed otherwise. Health officials have not yet been able to establish any connection between this case and the country’s border facilities. The country’s director of health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, said the case was “a national issue”.

Source: The Guardian August 17, 2021 08:40 UTC