On the 12th of August a new case of Covid-19 was found in the Auckland community. This was after 102 days of New Zealand having no cases of the virus in the community. In response, the government put Auckland into Alert level 3 and the rest of NZ into Alert level 2.
This means that Aucklanders should stay home and avoid contact with people who are not in their bubbles. Bubbles can include household members and a few other special people. Aucklanders should only travel within the city if they have something important to do, and they cannot leave Auckland without special permission.
The rest of NZ is at Alert level 2. This means that people can go about their lives normally but they have to practice social distancing and not meet in large groups. For example, people can have church meetings or concerts at Alert level 2, but not more than 100 people.
The family that were affected by Covid-19 had many contacts, and some of them have caught the virus. This group of people are called the Auckland August Cluster. It now has 74 active cases of Covid-19. All of the people who have the virus have been moved into quarantine facilities.
On August 16 a maintenance worker at one of the quarantine facilities also caught Covid-19. The interesting thing about this case is that scientists have found that the maintenance worker caught the virus from a patient at the quarantine facility. However, the worker had no contact with the patient. Scientists are trying to figure out how the worker caught the virus from the patient.
At the time of this latest outbreak, the government was just about to retire and start preparing for the election. However, the election has now been rescheduled for October 17.
Vocabulary:
bubble: a group of people who you can safely have contact with
permission: when an authority tells you that you are allowed to do something
go about your life: live your life, do all of the normal things that you usually do
contacts: interactions with people
maintenance worker: someone who looks after a building. They might do things like change light bulbs or fix things that are broken.
retire: stop working
election: when people choose a new government by voting
reschedule: change the date of an event