53 New Zealanders in China’s Wuhan City
There are 53 New Zealanders in the Chinese city at the heart of the novel coronavirus, with 20 contacting the government for consular assistance, the Prime Minister has revealed.
Speaking at a post-Cabinet press conference yesterday, Jacinda Ardern talked about New Zealand’s response to the deadly coronavirus.
She said MFAT was continuing to monitor the situation closely and had updated its China travels advisory to ‘Do not travel to Hubei province’.
“There are now 53 New Zealanders registered as being in Wuhan city on safe travel. This includes New Zealand citizens as well as their dependents, some of whom are New Zealand permanent residents and some who are citizens of other countries.
“Around 20 of these people have contacted us seeking consular assistance.”
She said MFAT was not aware of any New Zealanders in Wuhan showing flu-like symptoms.
Ms Ardern said she had been told there were staff at the embassy given the nature of the what’s happening in China at the moment.
She said information coming out of Beijing was that it would be “very difficult to get foreign nationals out of the province even if they are healthy”. Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said tests that had been ordered in New Zealand were being sent to Melbourne and results were due back within 36 hours.
He said at the time of the SARS outbreak, only one New Zealander was affected, and they were later treated and recovered. New Zealand had “very well-honed systems”, Dr Bloomfield said.
“We have two things that are different this time around - there is very early and widespread information provided by the Chinese authorities and measures implement, and the second thing is China was able to isolate and identify this virus very early on so that testing could be developed and is now available around the globe.”