New Zealand has gone a week without a community COVID-19 case.
Ministry of Health figures released on Friday afternoon show there have been just two new cases of coronavirus in the last day, both of which were detected at managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities.
The most recent community case came last Friday, when a person in Hamilton tested positive for coronavirus after returning from managed isolation at the Pullman Hotel.
One of the new cases is a person who had arrived in New Zealand from the UK via Singapore on January 26. They are a contact of a previously reported case, and tested positive on around day 16 of their stay.
The other flew in from the UK via the United Arab Emirates on February 7, testing positive during routine testing on day three of their stay.
Both new cases were detected in Auckland MIQ facilities, and take the tally of confirmed cases in New Zealand to 1970.
Meanwhile 12 previously reported cases have now recovered, which sees our total number of active cases drop to 44. Another 5089 tests were processed on Thursday.
The lack of new community cases is more good news for New Zealand, on a day in which the Prime Minister announced the first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines will arrive next week.
Border workers will get jabs from next Saturday after the first shipment of tens of thousands of vaccines is flown in, Jacinda Ardern said.
"We have been working behind the scenes to secure the timely arrival of vaccines for our border workers and their families and it's great they will arrive well within our scheduled timeframes," Ardern said on Friday.
"Government representatives have been in conversations with Pfizer on a constant basis for the last few weeks. We appreciate the effort the company has gone to deliver the first instalment earlier than originally anticipated."
The Government officially gave the Pfizer vaccine the green light earlier this week, following approval given by New Zealand's medicine regulator Medsafe last week, clearing the way for 750,000 doses to arrive in New Zealand.
