Ritika Pratap 
New Zealand Prime Minister has lifted the country’s alert level to three [Source: TVNZ]
New Zealand Prime Minister has lifted the country’s alert level to three and is expected to raise it further to level four in the next 48 hours.
Jacinda Ardern says community transmission is a possibility in New Zealand now and emphasized that “staying at home is essential”.
She says all non-essential businesses must close in 48 hours which include bars, restaurants, cinemas, playgrounds.
Ardern says essential services will remain open however, all indoor and outdoor events in NZ are banned.
All schools in NZ will close from tomorrow.
This as 36 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in New Zealand as of this morning, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 102.
Ministry of Health Director-General Dr Ashley Bloomfield says the finer details of the new cases will be provided later.
Dr Bloomfield says of the cases today over half are directly related to overseas travel, most of the remainder are close contacts of a previously confirmed case or associated with an event where there were confirmed cases such as the Queenstown World Hereford Cattle conference.
He says none of the cases announced today appear to relate to community transmission.
Across all cases, he says they have two that they cannot be certain where the infection came from and are therefore treating them as community transmission.
Dr Bloomfield says most of NZ cases are still from people who have travelled to NZ from overseas.
