New Zealand has confirmed two new cases of the more virulent South African Covid-19 strain in the community, as investigators scrambled to determine how the virus breached border controls.
Health officials said the pair, an adult and child, caught the virus in the same quarantine facility as a woman who tested positive over the weekend, ending a run of more than two months with no cases in the community.
They said the facility - the Pullman Hotel in Auckland - was allowing no quarantine arrivals or departures as teams examine how the infection spread. "It does suggest that something's happened in the Pullman where these people have potentially come into contact with each other, that investigation will continue," the minister for Covid-19