Three Covid-19 cycles with no community transmission, but Ardern cautions NZ's 'journey is far from over'

May 20, 2020

There have also been no new clusters for over a month.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says there have now been three full transmission cycles of Covid-19 with no community transmission in the country.

At the daily media briefing at Parliament this afternoon, Ms Ardern also said there have also been no new Covid-19 clusters for over a month.

"Importantly all the cases at Level 3 and Level 2 have been contact traced to existing cases and ultimately represent the long tale of Covid-19.

"The last case of community transmission where the source was unknown was early April, that means we have had three full cycles of transmission with no new commmunity transmission cases in New Zealand," she said.

However, Ms Ardern cautioned that the virus is still present here and "our journey is far from over".

Her comments come as for the third day in a row there have been no new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand reported over the past 24 hours.

Today's announcement means New Zealand's total number of people who have or have had Covid-19, including probable cases, remains at 1503. The number of confirmed cases - the number New Zealand gives to the World Health Organisation and compares with other nations - is still 1153.

The Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield provided the update from Wellington today.

Of those cases, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield confirmed 1447 people have recovered, up five on yesterday for 96 per cent of all cases.

A recovered case means the person is symptom free for at least 48 hours and it has been at least 10 days since they first became ill.

Dr Bloomfield added there is one person in hospital throughout the country with the virus. The person is not in intensive care.

There are still 16 significant Covid-19 clusters around the country. A significant cluster is a group of 10 or more people who have or have had the coronavirus.

Yesterday, 4882 Covid-19 tests were carried out in New Zealand, bringing the total to 238,725 so far.

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