WELLINGTON, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern urged New Zealanders to follow the self-isolation advice when addressing the new community cases of COVID-19 detected on Saturday evening and alert level changes at Sunday's press conference.
Two new community cases of COVID-19 were detected on late Saturday. Genome sequencing showed the virus was the more contagious mutated coronavirus variant first found in Britain, and both of them were closely linked to previously known cases of COVID-19 in the South Auckland community. However, the source of this community infection was still under investigation, according to Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield.
New Zealand's largest city Auckland moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level Three and the rest of the country to Alert Level Two from 6:00 a.m. Sunday morning.
Ardern said the government was asking for as little human to human interaction as possible at level three.
"Stay at home, no interactions with anybody else," said Ardern.
Ardern reiterated that if people were asked to miss work to await a COVID-19 test, or were asked to self-isolate, people need to follow the advice.
The latest locations of interest where the new cases had been included a gym, a shopping center and a tertiary education institution where there was a higher density of population. Enditem