New Zealand has been thrust back into Covid-19 restrictions after three community cases were detected in Auckland yesterday.
Auckland is now at Alert Level 3 for at least three days and the rest of New Zealand is at Alert Level 2, with that setting to be reviewed every day.
The three Auckland cases were in the same family and included a pupil at Papatoetoe High School, where 1400 children attend.
The mother and daughter visited New Plymouth over the Waitangi Day holiday weekend, along with two other people, and stopped in Drury and Otorohanga.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern cancelled her engagements yesterday and flew to Wellington to be briefed, following the discovery of the new cases.
An emergency Cabinet meeting was held late in the afternoon and Ms Ardern held a press conference soon afterwards, at which she announced the alert level changes.
"We have stamped out the virus before and we will do it again," Ms Ardern said.
Cabinet had agreed to the new alert levels "out of an abundance of caution".
Director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield said he was unsure if the patients would have been infectious at the time they travelled, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Known close contacts of the family who saw them during that trip were now in isolation but had tested negative, he said.
The mother works for a laundry and catering company which services planes at Auckland Airport but Dr Bloomfield said officials remained open-minded about the source of the cases.
She was routinely tested for Covid-19 fortnightly and tested negative on January 18, before going on leave from February 5.
Dr Bloomfield said Papatoetoe High School would close today and tomorrow.
Several pupils and some teachers were regarded as close contacts and should self-isolate and seek a test, Dr Bloomfield said.
Scientists were last evening racing through genomic sequencing of the family’s test results to see if a link could be made with known cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand.
The three family members have all been moved into quarantine, and extra Covid-19 testing facilities have been set up in Auckland.
Queues quickly built up at some testing stations, and several extended opening hours.
The Ministry of Health also released a list of 18 known places the family had visited, in Auckland, New Plymouth and Otorohanga.
Air New Zealand has stopped offering food and drinks on domestic flights for at least 24 hours.
The community cases capped off a bad weekend for New Zealand on the Covid-19 front, after the announcement on Saturday that a person with the disease had died in North Shore Hospital. Three further cases were confirmed in managed isolation facilities at the weekend.
