Sri Lanka prepare for New Zealand challenge with unchanged T20I squad
Sri Lanka have named a strong 16-member squad led by Charith Asalanka for a six-match white-ball series involving three T20Is followed by three ODIs, against New Zealand.
New Zealand reported 14 new community cases of Delta variant of Covid-19 on Wednesday, all in the largest city Auckland, which brought the total number of cases in the country’s community outbreak to 983.
Of the current community cases, 20 cases are in hospital, including four cases in intensive care units (ICUs) or high dependency units (HDUs), Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told a press conference.
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Auckland has 966 community cases and the capital Wellington has 17 cases, Bloomfield said. There are 947 cases that have been clearly epidemiologically linked to another case or sub-cluster, and a further eight cases for which links are yet to be fully established, he said.
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According to the Ministry of Health, New Zealand also reported three historical cases in recent returnees. These cases have remained in managed isolation and quarantine facilities in Christchurch, the Xinhua news agency reported.
The total number of confirmed cases in New Zealand since the start of the pandemic is 3,981, Bloomfield said.
Areas outside Auckland moved to Alert Level 2 from 11:59 p.m. local time on Sep 7, which means businesses and schools are back to normal, with masks mandatory in certain settings and gatherings limited to 50 people in size. Auckland currently remains at Level 4, the top-level Covid-19 lockdown, for another week.
New Zealand has reopened its border bookings to those trying to return home. The low case numbers will be welcome news for the country, which is attempting to wipe out the virus and continue its elimination strategy. New Zealand health officials are particularly attuned to “mystery cases” – those that cannot be linked to existing infections – as these could signal that the virus is spreading undetected through the community. Wednesday’s release of numbers had no mystery cases.
“Trends are heading, generally speaking, in the right direction,” the Covid-19 response minister, Chris Hipkins, said. “But you never say never because things can change – they can change quite quickly.”
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