WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – New Zealand reported its first case of coronavirus outside a quarantine facility in more than two months, although there was no immediate evidence that the virus was spreading in the community.
Health director-general Ashley Bloomfield said on Sunday that the case was for a 56-year-old woman who recently returned from Europe.
Like other travelers who returned, she spent 14 days in quarantine and was negative twice before returning home on January 13. Later, she developed symptoms and the test came back positive.
He said health officials will carry out genome tests, but are working under the assumption that the case is a more transmissible variant of the virus.
He said they are investigating to see if it is possible that she contracted the illness from another traveler who was in the same quarantine unit.
New Zealand has eliminated community transmission of the virus, at least for now. Bloomfield said officials are stepping up contact tracking and testing efforts and hope to have more information about the case in the coming days.
Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region:
– A Chinese city has completed 2,600 temporary treatment rooms while the north of the country faces new clusters of the coronavirus. Rooms for single occupancy in the city of Nangong, in the province of Hebei, just outside Beijing, are equipped with heaters, bathrooms, showers and other amenities, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Special attention has been paid to Hebei because of its proximity to the capital and the province has blocked large areas to prevent the spread of the virus. The provincial capital, Shijiazhung, and the city of Xingtai, which spans Nangong, were practically isolated. Community isolation and large-scale testing were also applied. The National Health Commission reported 19 additional cases on Sunday in Hebei. Heilongjiang Province, in the northeast of the country, recorded another 29 cases, partly linked to an outbreak at a meat processing plant. Beijing, where about 2 million residents were forced to undergo further tests, reported two new confirmed cases. China currently has 1,800 people on treatment for COVID-19, 94 of whom are listed in serious condition, with another 1,017 being monitored in isolation for having tested positive for the virus without showing symptoms.
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