The Australian tourist who visited Wellington from Sydney recently has been confirmed to have the more infectious Delta variant of Covid-19, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
New South Wales health officials confirmed the genome sequencing results for the visitor late Friday evening.
New Zealand director of public health Dr Caroline McElnay said the confirmation reinforces the right precautionary actions have been taken in the capital which remains at alert level 2 until 12:59pm on Sunday.
“The signs so far are encouraging – testing has ramped up and there have not been any community cases at this point."
Dr McElnay said it was imperative regular checks are made of the ministry's list of locations of interest in Wellington.
“It’s incredibly important people keep up to date with the Ministry’s locations of interest in Wellington and if you’ve been at one, to continue to isolate either for the full 14 days and get at least two negative test results or to isolate until a negative day five test, depending on your situation,” she said.
“I want to emphasise the importance of staying vigilant, stay home if unwell and get advice about having a test, wash hands regularly, cough and sneeze into the elbow, wear masks or face coverings on all public transport, and keep track of where you’ve been – scan QR codes wherever you go and turn on Bluetooth tracing in the app dashboard."