Eleven international seamen isolating at New Zealand quarantine hotel are infected with COVID-19 - despite testing negative for the virus before departing.
New Zealand news organizations previously reported about 440 fishermen from Russia and Ukraine were to arrive on two flights chartered by fishing companies - the first of which is thought to have touched down from Moscow via Singapore late last week.
Many of the 237 onboard have been isolated at a hotel near the airport in Christchurch.
On Tuesday afternoon New Zealand time a Health Ministry representative said there were 11 positive cases at the facility and another 14 were "under further investigation." The cases were all imported. They were detected as part of routine day-three testing.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, fresh off her landslide reelection victory, says she plans to form a new government in the next three weeks with an eye toward responding to the virus. New Zealand's handling of the virus has been hailed internationally as a success story - with fewer than 2,000 cases and 25 deaths.
"We're cracking on very quickly with the work we need to do as a new team," Ardern said.
She warned this week that rigid political polarization could be "damaging for democracy." Ardern said people throughout the world should work to move beyond partisan infighting.
"That can be damaging for democracy, regardless of the side of the House that you sit on," Ardern said, according to The Associated Press.
The election results will give Ardern's Labour Party its first outright majority in decades, removing the usual need for an interparty governing. Ardern's previous term as prime minister saw the country weather multiple crises, including the coronavirus pandemic and the 2019 killing of 51 Muslims by a white supremacist at two mosques in Christchurch. She was first elected in 2017.
New Zealand this weekend reported its first case of community transmission of the virus in three weeks, which it linked to a man who works at foreign ships at the country's ports. Officials believe the man was identified quickly enough that they were able to contain wider spread, The Associated Press said.
