Wellington: New Zealand on Thursday reported another new COVID-19 case, after the country registered two infections earlier this week for the first time in 24 days.
The new case was a man in his 60s who was in quarantine after arriving from Pakistan on June 13 on Air NZ 124 flight from Melbourne, reports Xinhua news agency.
He developed symptoms on June 15.
All passengers on the Air NZ flight will be contacted, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told the media here.
“This is a case at the border, we will continue to get cases at the border. There is still a pandemic raging off our shores and the number of daily cases continues to be at a very high number around the globe,” Bloomfield said.
The total number of COVID-19 cases New Zealand is 1,507, while the death toll stood at 22.
Regarding the two COVID-19 cases reported on Tuesday, who were released from quarantine earlier than 14 days, to travel from Auckland to Wellington to visit a dying parent, Bloomfield said 90 per cent of the 364 contacts of the two patients had been contacted.
“There was a lapse in the process for us introducing the routine day three and day 12 testing in the latter part of last week, and I know that the case of these two women will have upset people and shaken people’s confidence,.
“I’ve certainly been upset by it and I apologize that we’ve ended up in this position,” he said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Wednesday described the emergence of the two COVID-19 cases “an unacceptable failure of the system”, while Bloomfield said that it was “a slip up in the process”.
Kalinga AI