New Zealand discharges last COVID-19 patient, records no new case in 5 days

Amid the global fight against the novel coronavirus, New Zealand has reached a milestone after the last COVID-19 patient was discharged from the Middlemore Hospital in Auckland.

Ashley Bloomfield, the country’s director-general of health, broke the news during a press briefing on Wednesday.

Bloomfield also revealed that the country has not recorded any new case of the novel disease in the last five days.

According to him, there are just 21 remaining active cases of COVID-19 in the country, with none of them requiring hospital treatment.

He added that the country has carried out 267,435 tests and has nearly another 200,000 testing kits in stock.

“For the fifth consecutive day, there are no new cases of COVID-19 cases in New Zealand. It remains at 1,754. And the total of confirmed and probable cases is 1,404,” he said.

“There is one additional recovered case and this total is now 1,462 and there are just 21 remaining active cases of COVID-19.

“There are no additional deaths to report. And, currently, there is nobody in hospital with COVID-19 following the discharge of a person from Middlemore Hospital.

“Yesterday, our laboratories processed 4,279 tests. So our grand total of tests undertaken to date in New Zealand is 267,435.”

New Zealand had its first case of the virus on February 26, and has confirmed about 1,500 cases and 21 deaths since then, according to Johns Hopkins’ coronavirus resource center.

To contain spread of the novel disease, the country had announced closure of its borders on March 19, followed by a full-scale lockdown on March 26.

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, had also hinted that the country could gradually relax some of its tough measures introduced to combat the virus given the success recorded so far.