New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has postponed the nation's general election by 4 weeks after a spike in Covid-19 coronavirus cases. The vote, originally supposed to take place on September 19th, 2020, will now be held on October 17th, 2020. Prime Minister Ardern said that the new date will allow for parties to "plan around the range of circumstances we will be campaigning under".

As of Sunday, August 16th, 2020, there are 69 confirmed active cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus in New Zealand, which had previously recorded no new locally transmitted cases for 102 days. Earlier this week, New Zealand's most populated city of Auckland re-entered a 12 day level-3 lockdown, meaning that people must stay home except for essential purposes, schools will operate at limited capacity, and public places such as museums and gyms will be temporarily shut down.

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