Christchurch, New Zealand,<\/p>\n
Health officials refused to lift a ban on Pakistan\u2019s Covid-19 affected cricket team training during quarantine on Friday after the touring party\u2019s number of infections climbed to 10.<\/p>\n
The team were confined to their rooms when the first cases emerged last week but had hoped to resume training before finishing their stint in isolation on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
However, health chiefs said the risk of further infections was too great.<\/p>\n
Ten people among the 53-member tour party have tested positive for Covid-19 while completing two weeks of isolation in Christchurch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have very carefully considered this situation,\u201d director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield said in a statement. \u201cAt this time, I continue to have ongoing concerns about the risk of cross-infection within the squad.\u201d<\/p>\n
The decision means that Pakistan\u2019s cricketers will have only 10 days to prepare for their first tour match, a Twenty20 international in Auckland on December 18, and probably less when travel is factored in.<\/p>\n
Bloomfield said the decision was prompted by the number of active cases detected among the squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cPublic health considerations will continue to be foremost in our response to Covid-19, whether this involves individuals or teams,\u201d he said. \u201cWe appreciate the challenges that this decision will have for the touring team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bloomfield issued the team with a \u201cfinal warning\u201d last week for flouting social distancing protocols at their hotel and no further breaches have been reported since.<\/p>\n
The tourists arrived in New Zealand on November 24 and are scheduled to play three T20s and two Tests.<\/p>\n
New Zealand has largely eradicated community transmission of coronavirus, recording just 1,713 cases and 25 deaths in a population of five million.<\/p>\n
Read also<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/six-pakistani-cricketers-test-positive-for-virus-in-new-zealand\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Christchurch, New Zealand, Health officials refused to lift a ban on Pakistan\u2019s Covid-19 affected cricket team training during quarantine on Friday after the touring party\u2019s number of infections climbed to 10. The team were confined to their rooms when the first cases emerged last week but had hoped to resume training before finishing their stint […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18086,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18085\/revisions\/18086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}