There are eight new cases of covid-19 in New Zealand, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says. The total number of cases is now 28. The new cases today all relate to overseas travel.
A parent of a child at Ponsonby Primary School has tested positive for coronavirus - and the school is closed anyway for a teacher-only day.
Parents have been notified by email. Board of trustees chairman Alan Webb said the board was not ready to say anything more yet.
"We are still working our way through it," he said.
The school will be closed tomorrow anyway for a scheduled teacher-only day.
The news came a day after new principal Sanjay Rama told parents that he had cancelled whole-school assemblies until further notice, postponed Years 1-3 swimming sports until Term 4, and postponed the annual Taste of Ponsonby event.
"We are hoping to run this in Term 3. This is due to advice we are receiving from the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health around large gatherings," he told parents.
"It has been a hectic, chaotic and crazy week with all that is going on around the world and now in our own country!"
"We are watching very closely as to whether we have any community spread. We also want to act before we see any evidence of widespread community outbreak.
"We've seen a big increase in the number of tests being done, only a few of those cases are testing positive, but it does give us a good idea of whether there's wider community transmission. We're testing people with wider influenza symptoms and it's not at this point been Covid-19.
"There's a lot of work going on to confirm our labs have everything they need to conduct the tests, get the results out quickly, identify the positive results and contact trace."
