Jacinda Ardern to provide COVID-19 update at 12pm

Jacinda Ardern will be speaking at 12:30 on Saturday.
Jacinda Ardern will be speaking at 12:30 on Saturday. Photo credit: Newshub

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will address New Zealand at 12pm with an update on the next steps the Government is taking against COVID-19 coronavirus.

Ardern will be following Director-General of the Ministry of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield who will be speaking at 11am from Parliament. Dr Bloomfield will also be giving an update at 12:30pm.

Newshub will be covering it live from 11am on Three and newshub.co.nz.

New Zealand now has 39 cases of the illness, all of which are connected to international travel and so far there has been no community transmission.

The ministry announced the largest jump in coronavirus cases so far with 11 more cases confirmed on Friday.

Of the new cases, five are from Auckland, two are from Waikato, two are from Wellington and one each in Canterbury and Hawkes Bay.

The Government has now implemented strict travel restrictions to limit the number of new cases spread from travellers.

All arrivals are required to self-isolate for 14 days, including people entering from the Pacific Islands and New Zealand's citizens.

On Friday a Fox Glacier helicopter pilot had to call the police when two tourists from Hong Kong ignored their isolation requirements and compromised a flight full of tourists.

There are currently 258,000 cases of COVID-19 worldwide. Of these 87,300 have recovered and 11,200 have died.

Italy has now overtaken the virus's original epicentre in China with 4032 deaths.