New Zealand fights to halt virus outbreak

The New Zealand government is fighting to stamp out its first COVID outbreak after no new cases were recorded for the past six months.

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The high-stakes effort to halt the virus outbreak came as a travellers returning from Sydney turned out to be a carrier of the delta variant. Then, 350 known cases were reported, straining New Zealand's contact-tracing system as workers try to track down 30,000 other people who might have been exposed.

New Zealand has a large diaspora of Pacific Islanders. Recently, an outbreak at a Samoan church event had hundreds of them infected. That also led to some racist attacks on social media.

In the past six months, New Zealanders enjoyed a period during which they didn't need to wear masks in public, and children attended school as usual.