After celebrating being coronavirus free earlier this month, New Zealand now has ten active cases after two more diagnoses were confirmed by health authorities on Tuesday. 

The two new cases announced on Tuesday both involved young men who were incoming passengers to the country. 

Both were men in their 20s.

Ome arrived in New Zealand on 18 June from Los Angeles; another arrived the following day from India. 

Both were staying at hotel facilities but the former was placed in a managed quarantine, rather than an isolation facility.

Positive cases are being sent for managed isolation at the Jet Park Hotel at the Auckland airport. 

“The total number of active cases in New Zealand is ten,” the country’s health chief, Ashley Bloomfield said in a press conference on Tuesday. 

The total number of confirmed cases is 1165, Dr. Bloomfield said. 

Dr. Bloomfield defended the country’s regime for managing cases in quarantine, whom he said were subject to tests upon days three and 12 of their time in isolation.

A case in which two women found to have been infected with the virus were allowed to leave quarantine facilities on compassionate grounds to attend a funeral, a development which prompted public outrage about the rigours of quarantine controls. 

The cases prompted a review of quarantine facilities, Dr. Bloomfield said. 

“We were celebrating zeroes [in case number] because we were very confident,” the health Chief said. 

“There’s been a lot of stories about so-called mixing and mingling like it’s a wedding reception [in those facilities] but that is not the case.

“I don’t think [the prior lack of cases] was because we weren’t testing enough. 

“The pandemic is accelerating overseas and we are seeing people coming back.

“Hence I think it’s helpful that we’re identifying the cases. 

“I do think that they (tests) are adequate.

“We can do up to 12,000 [tests] if necessary.”

Earlier last week a man from Pakistan and a couple from India had arrived in the country adding to the country’s caseload.

Another person diagnosed with a case is since considered to have recovered, Dr. Bloomfield said. 

On June 8 Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said: "We have eliminated the transmission of the virus for now”.

The Prime Minister subsequently noted the number of New Zealanders seeking to return home to the country had doubled.