WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s COVID-19 outbreak jumped to 21 cases on Thursday, but the authorities said the virus may not have been in the community for long as they linked its origin to a recent Sydney returnee.
There were 11 new cases in the last 24 hours, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Chief Ashley Bloomfield told a news conference.
Ardern said genome sequencing revealed the current positive cases were a close match to a returnee from Sydney who arrived on a flight on Aug. 7.
(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
