Helen Sullivan here.
Thank you to the blog reader who alerted me to the fact that someone in New Zealand is selling a coronavirus-free bag of air.
The advertisement for the snack-sized Ziplock bag – for which the current bid is a measly NZ$5,150.00 – reads as follows:
The news of Level 2 lockdown came as shock to me. During my unnecessary panic, I decided to get a test. After testing negative, I figured I’d share my gift of Covid free air with the world.
Enjoy this free range, gluten free bag of air from the lungs of a 100% New Zealand made boy lol
Updated
Ardern says her team is “evidence-based” and the goal is getting back to freedom faster. With that, we will leave the press conference.
The prime minister says that genome testing hasn’t drawn a link between the current cases circulating in Auckland, and those tested and held in quarantine, which have arrived from overseas.
The source case, therefore, remains a mystery.
The cluster of cases around a west Auckland cool store means health authorities are still investigating if it was the source, and surfaces were somehow contaminated. The cool store handled freight from overseas.
The prime minister said they may never find out how the disease got back into New Zealand, but they had effectively ruled out that the flare-up was a “burning ember” from New Zealand’s previous March outbreak.
The PM says currently her team see “no reason” that the lockdown will be extended beyond August 26.
“As we have said from the start, our overall Covid-19 strategy remains elimination. That means stamping out the virus whenever it comes back.”
“We have been world-leading in our Covid response – we can do all of that again. 1.5 million New Zealanders in our biggest city is carrying a heavy load for our team of 5 million right now.”
“We can once again pull together to eliminate Covid.”
“Stay safe, safe kind, and stay well everyone.”
The prime minister is now taking questions, and says an entire lockdown for all of the North Island was not considered or advised by the director-general of health.
More now on the extension of the current alert levels in New Zealand:
“We know the incubation period for Covid-19, and our experience of the previous cluster means we can expect to see more cases as part of this cluster – it will grow before it slows,” Ardern said.
It will continue being linked to schools, workplaces and church events, the prime minister said.
“In keeping with our precautionary approach and New Zealand’s hard and early philosophy, the cabinet has agreed to maintain the current settings for a further 12 days.”
Auckland will remain at level 3, and the rest of the country will remain at level 2.
These alert levels will end on Wednesday 26th August, and the decision on alert levels will be reviewed on the 21st of August.
“There is nothing to suggest we need to move to a level 4 lockdown at this stage,” Ardern said, as there was so far only one cluster.
The prime minister reiterated this point, as she said many New Zealanders were nervous of a wider Level 4 lockdown.
The wage subsidy would be extended nationwide and will cover the period of time Level 3 restrictions remain in place.
It has been 53 hours since Auckland was moved to level 3, and the rest of the country to level 2, says New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern.
“We have identified 29 cases, all remaining linked to one cluster in Auckland. There is one other case likely linked to the cluster is still being investigated.”
More than 30,000 tests have been done in the last 48 hours.
“There are signs we have found this outbreak relatively early in its life,” Ardern said.
The PM said extensive testing and contact tracing has found the earliest case we have found to date is a cool store worker on the 31st July. It is the earliest sign of the re-emergence of the virus yet discovered.
There was as yet no clear links to the border or quarantine facilities. Genome testing also suggests it is a new strain of the virus to New Zealand – and not a dormant version lingering since New Zealand’s last outbreak.
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern is about to address the media after a 3 pm meeting with her cabinet.
She will announce whether Auckland’s lockdown – set to expire at midnight – will be extended and whether the rest of the country will remain at level 2.
Follow the livestream of her press conference here. She will be accompanied by the Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield:
Updated
UK holidaymakers in race to return from France before quarantine deadline
The UK’s airports and ports were braced for travel chaos on Friday as some of the hundreds of thousands of British holidaymakers in France race to return home before new quarantine rules kick in.
Summer plans have been thrown into disarray after the government said on Thursday evening that, from 4am on Saturday, all arrivals from France would have to self-isolate for 14 days or face a fine.
The operators of the Channel Tunnel warned on Thursday night that Friday travel slots were “already pretty much fully booked” and that it would not be easy to return. “We just haven’t got the space to take everybody who might suddenly want to come up to the coast,” John Keefe, director of public affairs at Getlink told the BBC’s Newsnight:
In Australia, horrific footage of a 95-year-old woman left to languish in a Melbourne aged care facility struck by Covid-19 shows ants crawling from a wound on her leg, and the bandages around it crusted with blood.
The footage and photos, described by the federal aged care minister as “heartbreaking”, were taken inside Kalyna Care, a private residential home in Melbourne’s north-west, on Tuesday, some two weeks after the virus was first identified in one staff member.
The woman, known to her family as Milka, died on Friday morning of conditions unrelated to Covid-19:
Spain sees coronavirus cases surge again
Applause and cheers rang out in May as Spain shut down its largest makeshift hospital – hastily erected in Madrid’s convention centre – in what was seen as a symbolic turning point in one of Europe’s deadliest battles with Covid-19.
Less than four months later, Spain’s military has again been dispatched to build a field hospital, this time in the north-eastern city of Zaragoza, as the country grapples with one of the highest rates of infection in western Europe.
“We’re at a critical moment,” said Helena Legido-Quigley, a Barcelona-born professor of public health at the National University of Singapore.
Some eight weeks after the country emerged from one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns, a surge of cases in north-east and central areas have resulted in Spain leading Europe in numbers of confirmed new cases.
The country’s 14-day infection rate stands at 100 per 100,000, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control – behind only Luxembourg in Europe – and much higher than France’s rate of 32 or Italy’s 8.2 cases per 100,000:
