WELLINGTON: New Zealand has no active COVID-19 cases after the country’s final patient was given the all clear and released from isolation, health authorities said Monday.
The milestone was “really good news” and an achievement the whole of New Zealand could take heart from, health department director-general Ashley Bloomfield said.
“Having no active cases for the first time since February 28 is certainly a significant mark in our journey but, as we’ve previously said, ongoing vigilance against COVID-19 will continue to be essential,” he said in a statement.
New Zealand has won praise for its handling of the pandemic, which involved a strict seven-week lockdown that ended last month after the virus was contained.
The South Pacific nation, with a population of five million, has had 1,154 confirmed cases and 22 deaths.
There have been no new infections for 17 days and, until Monday, just one active case for more than a week.
Details of the final patient were not released for privacy reasons but it is believed to be a woman aged in her 50s who was linked to a cluster at an Auckland nursing home.
“(The) remaining case has been symptom-free for 48 hours and is regarded as recovered. The person has now been released from isolation,” the health department said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is expected to announce later Monday that New Zealand will this week move to alert Level 1, the lowest rating on its four-tier virus response system.
Under the change, international border restrictions will remain in place but the final domestic curbs — such as limits on public gatherings and mandatory social distancing — will be removed.
New Zealand clears its last COVID-19 case
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New Zealand clears its last COVID-19 case
- The South Pacific nation, with a population of five million, has had only 1,154 confirmed cases and 22 deaths
US military boards another oil tanker in Indian Ocean after tracking it from the Caribbean
- Venezuela has relied on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains
- The Veronica III left Venezuela on Jan. 3, the same day as Maduro’s capture, with nearly 2 million barrels of crude and fuel oil
WASHINGTON: US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said Sunday.
Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure then-President Nicolás Maduro before Maduro was apprehended in January during an American military operation.
Several tankers fled the Venezuelan coast in the wake of the raid, including the ship that was boarded in the Indian Ocean overnight. The Defense Department said in a post on X that US forces boarded the Veronica III, conducting “a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding.”
“The vessel tried to defy President Trump’s quarantine — hoping to slip away,” the Pentagon said. “We tracked it from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, closed the distance, and shut it down.”
Video posted by the Pentagon shows US troops boarding the tanker.
The Veronica III is a Panamanian-flagged vessel under US sanctions related to Iran, according to the website of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The Veronica III left Venezuela on Jan. 3, the same day as Maduro’s capture, with nearly 2 million barrels of crude and fuel oil, TankerTrackers.com posted Sunday on X.
“Since 2023, she’s been involved with Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan oil,” the organization said.
Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, told The Associated Press in January that his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document that at least 16 tankers left the Venezuelan coast in contravention of the quarantine.
The Trump administration has been seizing tankers as part of its broader efforts to take control of the Venezuela’s oil. The Pentagon did not say in the post whether the Veronica III was formally seized and placed under US control, and later told the AP in an email that it had no additional information to provide beyond that post.
Last week, the US military boarded a different tanker in the Indian Ocean, the Aquila II. The ship was being held while its ultimate fate was decided by the United States, according to a defense official who spoke last week on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing decision-making.
