Auckland ‘not out of the woods’

Auckland has seen no new Covid-19 cases for the third consecutive day under alert level 3 restrictions, but we will likely know from now onwards whether the cluster has grown.

Yesterday afternoon, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announced there were no new community cases linked to the Auckland February cluster, which was ‘‘reassuring’’.

However, based on last week’s exposure events around Auckland, authorities expect to see any new Covid19 cases emerge from yesterday onwards, Bloomfield said.

‘‘Clearly we are early on in this journey, and not yet out of the woods.’’

There have been 15 confirmed cases of Covid-19 linked to the Auckland February cluster to date, across four south Auckland families.

When asked during yesterday’s press conference whether more zero-case days would mean authorities struggle to justify the lockdown, Bloomfield said this wasn’t a concern.

‘‘I’m confident our thinking was good, and our advice was good,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has denied claims by the woman who went to work at KFC while infected with Covid-19 that she was not told to self-isolate.

The Auckland woman believes she was unfairly singled out by the prime minister for not self-isolating, and that she was given official advice to the contrary.

Ardern said in a stand-up yesterday morning about 15 text messages and phone calls were sent to the family.

Emails were also sent from the school.

‘‘I cannot answer whether or not those were received, but certainly you can see attempts were made,’’ she said.