
Trans-Tasman bubble OK despite NZ cluster.
New Zealand's latest cluster of COVID-19 has grown to three but Australian officials have so far held off making any changes to border arrangements.
Last Thursday, health authorities announced a security guard at New Zealand's biggest quarantine facility, the Grand Millennium hotel in Auckland, had contracted the virus.
By Monday, two further cases - a security worker and a cleaner - were unearthed, with genome sequencing showing links to the original case and a recent returnee at the facility.
Another New Zealand quarantine worker at the Grand Millennium hotel in Auckland has tested positive to the coronavirus, bringing the number of cases linked to the cluster to three.https://t.co/lmXSRrsMAp
— Radio Australia (@radioaustralia) April 11, 2021
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has downplayed the risk of an outbreak, saying the new cases had already isolated.
Ms Ardern told 1News she and the Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield were "not anxious".
"It's someone we already identified, so that's always heartening," she said.
"As they are a close contact ... they were already in isolation."
While a small number of community cases previously prompted Australia to pause quarantine-free travel from New Zealand, on this occasion it has not done so.
Last week, Ms Ardern announced New Zealand would reciprocate quarantine-free travel from Australia from April 19, effectively creating a trans-Tasman bubble.
The country that's nearly completed its vaccinations in 16 days.
When plotted on a graph, the curve of Bhutan's COVID-19 vaccination drive shoots upwards from the very first day, surging past Israel, the United States, Bahrain and other countries known for vaccinating people rapidly.
Those countries took months to reach where they are, painstakingly strengthening their vaccination campaigns in the face of rising coronavirus cases.
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