Coronavirus live news: UK variant hits New Zealand; CDC says 'absolutely' too soon to lift US mask mandate
Australia suspends quarantine-free travel with New Zealand; Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine gives 94% protection, US daily Covid cases drop below 100,000
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Australia has suspended quarantine-free travel with New Zealand after it locked down Auckland following the detection of three new community cases.
Australia’s chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, convened an urgent meeting late on Sunday and it was decided that all flights originating in New Zealand would be classified as “Red Zone” flights for an initial period of 72 hours from Monday, Reuters reports.
“As a result of this, all people arriving on such flights originating within this three-day period will need to go into 14 days of supervised hotel quarantine,” Australia’s Department of Health said on its website.
“We were absolutely right to make the decision to be extra cautious because we assumed it was going to be one of the more transmissible variants,” Ardern said in a Facebook Live post.
Aucklanders are waking up on Monday to a new lockdown, hoping the short and sharp three-day restrictions ordered by Jacinda Ardern arrest the spread of Covid-19, AAP reports.
The prime minister said genomic testing had shown that the three community cases were the UK variant of Covid-19, the first to be detected in the country, according to Yahoo News.
Related: New Zealand's Auckland Covid outbreak is UK variant, says Ardern
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