Coronavirus: Auckland Lantern Festival axed over public safety concerns

Tuesday, 4 February 2020

New Zealanders returning home from or travelling via China will be expected to stay out of public areas and monitor their health as officials grapple with the spread of the coronavirus.

A popular lantern festival to celebrate Chinese New Year has been cancelled due to a 'groundswell of concern' over the deadly coronavirus.

The cancellation of the Auckland Lantern Festival, which was to run from February 13 at the Auckland Domain, follows the cancellation of several Lunar New Year events in the region last week.

The include the Whau Chinese New Year Festival and the Northcote Chinese and Korean New Year.

Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development spokesman Steve Armitage said after a meeting with Chinese community leaders the consensus was that the festival should be cancelled.

Auckland’s popular Lantern Festival has been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

* 'Significant' tourism cancellations in wake of coronavirus outbreak

* Coronavirus: Quarantined Kiwis to be housed at 'very flash' Navy training base**

'Over the course of the weekend it became quite clear that there was a groundswell of concern building from within the local Chinese community about whether or not it was appropriate to proceed with the event,' he said.

'The view is that there's a lot unfolding back home, there's uncertainty, there's concern for Chinese nationals in general. So on that basis entering into a time of celebration was something that was not the best thing to do.'

Concerns that the virus could spread at the popular festival, which usually draws crowds of about 200,000, was 'definitely a factor',

'Public health and safety is a critical concern for us, but we are very much aware the current advice from the Ministry of Health is that there are no confirmed cases.'

The coronavirus, called 2019-nCoV, was first identified in Wuhan, China.

Dozens of New Zealanders, set to return from Wuhan on a Government-chartered flight on Wednesday, will be isolated at a Defence Force site site north of Auckland for two weeks to make sure they don't have the virus.

At least 106 people have died in the outbreak, and more than 4400 people have been infected in more than a dozen countries.