New Zealand Locks Down All Nursing Homes after Virus Return

New Zealand locked down nursing homes nationally Wednesday after a 102-day period without coronavirus, while Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the epidemic might cause her to delay next month's general election.

Ardern said the authorities were working to track down someone who had been in touch with four Auckland citizens who had tested positive on Tuesday, putting an end to the hope of a virus at the frontier of New Zealand.

A three-day stay-at-home order for Auckland, New Zealand's largest city with a population of 1.5 million, was declared on Tuesday night and came into effect at lunchtime on Wednesday.

Police with the facial masks used roadblocks on main highways with Auckland to introduce new laws.

Ardern said health officials were also locking down aged care homes across the country because they could act as transmission hotspots.

“I realise how incredibly difficult this will be for those who have loved ones in these facilities, but it’s the strongest way we can protect and look after them,” she said.

There was mass shopping in stores throughout New Zealand and massive lines at coronavirus research stations as Kiwis come to grips with the re-emergence of a virus that everyone believed had been vanquished.

New Zealand had been held up by the World Health Organisation as an indicator of how to control the epidemic after reporting just 22 deaths in a nation of 5 million and eliminating human spread for more than three months.

Ardern said the presence of coronavirus was "unsettling," but every attempt was taken to follow the movements of the Auckland family of four that had caught infection from an undisclosed source.

She said that the September 19 polls might have had an effect if the epidemic could not be controlled.

“We’re seeking advice from the Electoral Commission, just so that we make sure have all options open to us,” she said.

“No decisions yet, as you can imagine, have been made.”

Ardern's center-left Labor Party has been riding strong in opinion polling and is projected to secure a second term.

The Conservative National Party was open to the possibility of extension if the circumstances indicated that it was warranted.

“It’s going to be very difficult to have an election in mid-September when we are now mid-August. It is very little time,” National leader Judith Collins told TV3.