Three days after ordering a coronavirus-induced lockdown in Auckland, New Zeland has lifted the stay-at-home directives on Wednesday as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressed confidence that the outbreak has been contained. The lockdown in a city of two million was implemented on Sunday after three community cases of COVID-19 were detected. The stay-at-home order was first in the city for almost six months. 

The close contacts of the three cases, who all were members of the same family, have all tested negative. The three people are currently in isolation.

” …we don’t have a widespread outbreak, but rather a small chain of transmission which is manageable via our normal contact tracing and testing procedures,” she said.

The Auckland lockdown would end on late Wednesday, the New Zealand PM said, adding that the city would remain at virus alert level two, under which public gatherings are restricted to 100 people and people require face masks on public transport.

An exception was people linked to a suburban school attended by three of the positive cases, with students, parents and teachers all required to remain at home.

New Zealand has been widely praised for its handling of the pandemic, with just 26 deaths in a population of five million.

Ardern said the country’s COVID-19 response — which involves rigorous contact tracing and widespread testing when there is a community case — had again proved effective.

” We wanted to make sure we took a cautious approach because that’s much, much better than getting it wrong and having a large scale outbreak and a long lockdown,” she said.

The source of the original infection — which proved to be from the more transmissible strain first detected in Britain — remains uncertain and Ardern said there was no room for complacency.

“There is an indescribable anxiety that comes with the daily grind of managing a pandemic and I think we all feel it,” she said.