Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the move Sunday evening after an urgent meeting with other top lawmakers in the Cabinet.

She said they decided to take a cautious approach until they found out more about the outbreak, including whether the infections were of the more contagious variants.

The rest of New Zealand will also be placed under heightened restrictions although will not go into lockdown, Ardern said.

In a significant setback to New Zealand’s efforts to keep the coronavirus from spreading in the community, three people from one Auckland family have tested positive with the source of the infections unknown, health officials announced Sunday.

The news prompted Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to cancel her plans and return to the capital Wellington for further briefings and decision-making.

New Zealand had successfully stamped out community spread of the virus, although new cases are regularly caught at the border among returning travellers, all of whom are required to spend two weeks in quarantine.

Officials said they’re keeping an open mind on how the Auckland mother, father and daughter caught the disease.

They said the mother works at an airline catering company, and officials are investigating whether there is a link to infected passengers.

“We are gathering all of the facts as quickly as we can, and the system that served us so well in the past is really gearing up to do so again,” said COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins.
He described the cases as new and active.

He said scientists are carrying out genome sequencing to see whether the cases are of the more transmissible variants, and also to see whether they match with any infected passengers.

New Zealand, with a population of 5 million, has reported a total of just over 2,300 cases and 25 deaths since the pandemic started.

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It became one of the few positive impacts of strict restrictions imposed on billions across the world.

This compelled scientists at NASA to further study the extend of this reduced pollution levels in atmosphere. The scientists developed a computer-generated model to study how the atmosphere would have been if there was no COVID-19 pandemic and how it turned out in these months.

NASA experts created a model projection of a COVID-free Earth atmosphere in 2020 keeping in account natural variations as well.

The model simulation and machine learning analysis showed an alternate reality version of 2020- one that did not experience any unexpected changes in human behaviour brought on by the pandemic.

The researchers received data from 46 countries with a total of 5,756 observation sites on the ground. The experts observed that in a city-level, 50 of the 61 cities show nitrogen dioxide reductions between 20-50%.

Wuhan in China, which was the first in the world to impose a strict lockdown after the COVID-19 outbreak originated there, showed the first reduction in nitrogen dioxide emissions. The emission in Wuhan was 60% less than expected. Milan in Italy’s Lombardy, the worst-hit regions in Europe, also saw a 60% reduction in nitrogen dioxide emissions.

New York, another worst hit city saw a 45% reduction in the pollution levels.

Meanwhile in India, a report released by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the pollution levels in India were reduced by 24% in the pre-lockdown days of early March. During the nationwide lockdown, it further went down by almost 50%.

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More than a month ago, Jyoti Kumari caught worldwide attention when she cycled almost 1,200 km with her injured father riding pillion for seven days, to reach home during the coronavirus lockdown.

Now the 15-year-old girl is all set to play herself in a film about her journey on the big screen. Despite the obstacles that life has thrown at her, Jyoti emerged as a strong willed girl who fought all the trials amidst the nationwide lockdown that ravaged lives of many a migrant labourer families.

Made by four friends, the project is expected to hit the floors on August. The film titled ‘Atmanirbhar’ (Self Reliant) will explore not only Jyoti’s tale but also weave in the systemic issues that had led her to take the arduous journey on cycle in May.

Wemakefilmz, a nearly two-decade-old venture will be producing the film. The film will be more fictionalised and shot in various locations. The project includes incidents from Jyoti’s life starting from Gurugram to Darbhanga and will not be a documentary .The actor for the role of Jyoti’s father is yet to be finalise.

The film will be made in Hindi, English and Marathi languages as well as dubbed into other languages. For the international audience, the title will be ‘A Journey of a Migrant’ and the film will subtitled in 20 languages.

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