New Zealand reports first case of coronavirus in community in months

Director-general of Health Ashley Bloomfield  says the woman had travelled to Spain and the Netherlands.(News Video)

New Zealand has reported its first coronavirus case outside of a quarantine facility in more than two months, although there is no immediate evidence the virus is spreading in the community.

Director-general of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the infected woman was a 56-year-old who recently returned from Europe and had quarantined at Auckland’s Pullman Hotel.

Like other returning travellers, she had spent 14 days in quarantine and twice tested negative before she returned home on January 13.

She later developed symptoms and tested positive.

“We are working under the assumptions that this is a positive case and that it is a more transmissible variant, either the one identified first in South Africa or the UK, or potentially Brazil — or another transmissible variant,” Dr Bloomfield told a news conference.

The woman had travelled to Spain and the Netherlands before arriving in New Zealand, he said.

Mr Bloomfield said authorities were investigating whether she caught the disease from another returning traveller who was staying in the same quarantine facility.

“This woman concerned has been scrupulous and keeping a good record of her movements, scanning the QR codes everywhere she’s gone,” Chris Hipkins, New Zealand’s COVID-19 Response Minister, said.

“That’s laid a very good foundation for our contact tracing team to do what they need to do now and that work is well underway, so I want to acknowledge that.”

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Mr Bloomfield said officials were ramping up contact tracing and testing efforts and hoped to have more information about the case in the coming days.

ABC