Auckland has been thrust back into Level 3 lockdown for the next 12 days, so does that mean every time there is a flare up of Covid-19 clusters we'll lock down? Not necessarily, according to the Prime Minister.
Jacinda Ardern told Seven Sharp tonight it all depends on the type of outbreak.
"People asked me today, for instance, why aren't we putting the Waikato into Level 3 given we have cases there? Well that's actually because that has been part of our textbook contact tracing," she said.
"We've identified where they're connected to, we've contact traced that family, we've tested, we've found cases, they've gone into isolation and quarantine. That's the way we expect things to run.
"The reason that Auckland is at Level 3 is because there are a group of cases that original source we haven't been able to directly identify, before we identified it a number of people who've been found to have Covid have participated in, for instance, in school, in community groups, in churches."
Ms Ardern said authorities were working to get in control of the perimeter of the Auckland cluster, though, in order to give greater confidence and to lessen the Covid-19 restrictions currently in place.
"We won't necessarily need to do this every time we find a case, it very much depends on the circumstances."
SHARE ME