Canterbury Mornings

An expert says a Covid-19 outbreak in New Zealand isn't inevitable but it is likely.New Zealand's first confirmed patient, a person in their 60s, is improving in isolation at Auckland City Hospital.Health officials say the risk to the public remains low.But Otago University infectious diseases expert David Murdoch told Chris Lynch New Zealand is likely to have more cases."Just seeing how quickly it's been able to spread within China, and I think we are seeing it crop up with cases that apparently didn't have any obvious contact with China."He says that the global spread isn't surprising."It is what we anticipated. Now I think we're seeing it spreading to a quite a number of cases."I think it is tracking along the lines of what many of us anticipated."