New Zealand

With 10 active cases and quarantine botch-ups, it could be months yet before Australian and Pacific visitors are allowed in.

Meanwhile, Australian Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham has warned its border will mostly likely be locked down until 2021.

That has businesses feeling nervous.

For Skyline - an adventure tourism business in Queenstown and Rotorua - the weekdays are the hardest.

Locals are visiting in the weekends and school holidays, but in between the luges and gondolas are quiet.

The first new case was a man in his 20s who flew into the country from India. The second was also a man in his 20s travelling from Los Angeles who tested positive at Jet Park Hotel, which he had been at since arriving in the country after experiencing respiratory symptoms.

"Sometimes the Jet Park facility is used for managed isolation if the other facilities are full. anyway. but all I'm told is there was a mix-up in the airport at the queues and they ended up at Jet Park, that's where they would’ve been transferred upon diagnosis anyway," Dr Bloomfield said.

The Japanese Football Association has announced that Japan is withdrawing its bid, just days before football's world governing body holds a vote to determine the successful candidate.

Following an executive board meeting on Monday, the JFA withdrew its candidacy and decided to support the Australia/New Zealand bid which will go up against a bid from Colombia.

Earlier this month, FIFA rated the joint Australia/New Zealand bid as the best to host the tournament, with Japan in second place.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the first case is a teenage girl who arrived on in New Zealand on 13 June and was travelling with her family, who have tested negative so far.

The teenager has been staying at the Novotel Auckland Airport hotel.

A New Zealander in isolation at the Auckland Airport Novotel yesterday said they were all in lockdown after being told of a new case at the hotel. However, the prime minister's office, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Health all declined to comment ahead of today's media briefing.

Two sisters who arrived from the UK on Sunday 7 June were granted a compassionate exemption to leave managed isolation in Auckland to visit their dying parent in Wellington.

Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the pair had applied for an exemption on Friday 12 June to travel on a private vehicle to the capital and it was approved the following day. The sisters drove down on the 13 June, and that night the parent died.

Both of these cases are recent arrivals from overseas and both were detected within managed isolation facilities.

The first case is the child of the couple whose cases were announced on Saturday. The second case is a 59-year-old woman who travelled from Delhi and arrived in Auckland on June 15 on flight AI1316. She travelled with her partner who has also been tested, but their result is pending.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield reiterated in a statement on Sunday that new cases at New Zealand's border were always expected as Kiwis return home from overseas.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the couple returned to New Zealand on a repatriation flight from Delhi - AI-1306 - and arrived on 5 June. They also have an infant who has not been tested due to age.

The couple showed no symptoms and returned a positive result after being tested on day 12 of isolation.

"This morning the couple and their child have been transferred from the hotel where they have been, the Grand Millenium, to the Jet Park quarantine hotel."

At 12:49am on Friday, the shake hit at a depth of 33km and was listed by GeoNet as happening 700km north-east of Gisborne. New Zealand's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) put it as being south of the Kermadec Islands. It was deemed "weak" by GeoNet.

But it's also further highlighted the difficult bind they find themselves in - risk the devastation of the coronavirus or prolong their economic suffering.

Fletcher Melvin, the head of the Cook Islands Chamber of Commerce and the Private Sector Taskforce, has been pushing hard for a travel bubble.

When Aotearoa declared zero cases a week ago, he was ecstatic, and so was the government - 87 percent of the country's economy relies on tourism, three quarters of those visitors from New Zealand.

In a statement released this afternoon, the Ministry of Health said the two new cases were related to the border as a result of recent travel from the UK.

The ministry said both cases were connected.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield would give a media briefing at 3pm, the release said.

Presuming the cases have not already been notified to the World Health Organisation by the UK, they bring New Zealand's confirmed cases to 1156, and the combined total of confirmed and probable cases to 1506.

New Zealand has had 22 deaths from the virus.