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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The New Zealand National Emergency Management Agency said people should get out of the water, off beaches and away from harbours, rivers and estuaries in areas from Ahipara to Bay of islands, Great Barrier Island and from Matata to Tolaga Bay.

#BREAKING 7.5-magnitude earthquake strikes off coasts of Vanuatu, New Caledonia: USGS pic.twitter.com/ga5VVmnGla

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) February 10, 2021

“We expect New Zealand coastal areas to experience strong and unusual currents and unpredictable surges at the shore,” the agency said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said there was a tsunami threat to offshore Australian islands and territories.

The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said the 7.7 magnitude quake’s epicentre was 417 km (258 miles) east of Tadine, New Caledonia, and was at a depth of 10 km (6.2miles).

The quake, which was upgraded from an earlier magnitude of7.2, followed at least three other tremors in the region with magnitudes ranging from 5.7 to 6.1 in a span of just over an hour.

The US Tsunami Warning System said a tsunami watch was in effect for American Samoa and that there was potential for tsunamis in other regions including Vanuatu, Fiji and NewZealand.

Waves reaching up to a level of 1 metre (3.3 feet) above the normal tide level are possible for some coasts of Vanuatu, Fiji and New Zealand, it added.

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