New Zealand reports three new coronavirus cases in the community

Cabinet was responding with a "cautious approach" to today's Covid-19 news, she said.

"All restrictions remaining after 8 March should be proportionate to the ever-increasing number of people we have protected", the group said - adding that the burden of proof should be on ministers to show restrictions are necessary.

The new cases come a day after New Zealand's first COVID-related death in five months.

Ardern was in Auckland for the Big Gay Out today, but flew back to Wellington to be briefed. She ended up canceling those plans and returning to Wellington to manage the outbreak.

Ardern said the government expects to start offering the vaccine to border and managed isolation facility workers on February 20.

"At this stage we don't know whether we need to".

On Wednesday, it was announced that New Zealand authorities had given formal approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, to be administered to those 16 years and older once stocks arrived in the country. Despite precautions, there have been several times when the virus has leaked out from the border before being controlled again, and officials are trying to determine whether that's happened again.

Three members of a south Auckland family - a father, mother and daughter - tested positive for the virus. They said the mother works at an airline catering company, and officials are investigating whether there is a link to infected passengers.

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He said Malaysia should be positioning itself in opposition to the Myanmar coup by limiting cooperation with the junta . However, China and Russian Federation at the UNHRC special session called the Myanmar situation its internal situation.

"It's going to take all the year to vaccinate everyone", Ardern said.

It is not clear how this affects the teams, as in the last Level 3 lockdown, businesses were allowed to continue in operation, and Emirates Team New Zealand continued training and development - but doing as much as possible from home.

"Our system has swung into action", Hipkins told a hastily called media conference.

The new cases were a couple and their daughter in Auckland. He said scientists are carrying out genome sequencing to see whether they are variants, and also to see whether they match with any infected passengers.

New Zealand was ranked the best performing nation in an index of nearly 100 countries based on containment of the coronavirus.

He did, however, say one could be scheduled "very quickly" if it was needed.Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield said this afternoon officials were collecting more detailed information and "we will make that available as soon as we have it".

The fatality was New Zealand's 26th Covid-related death since the start of the pandemic.