Total Covid cases rise to 51 - still limited to North Island

Three of the new cases are in Wellington, while the rest are in Auckland. There are also three new Covid-19 cases to report in recent returnees today.

Dr McElnay said the total number of community cases linked to the current Auckland outbreak are 51.

All cases have been or are being transferred to managed isolation facilities using strict infection prevention and control procedures, McElnay said.

More than 5000 individual contacts have been identified and the Health Ministry expects that will grow and increase by another 5000 by the end of today.

She said public health staff are rapidly interviewing cases to find out how they were infected and to determine further details of their movements.

She said 829 Waitemata health staff had been tested and all resultsso far were negative ,with 208 results pending. All patients from affected areas have returned negative tests.

ESR have completed genome equencing for 29 cases - including the three announced in Wellington yesterday and they are all linked to the Auckland cluster, McElnay says.

Dr McElnay said there had also been Covid-19 found in wasterwater testing in Warkworth, north of Auckland.

Despite the rise in numbers, Ardern said there was some good news with New Zealand hitting two records yesterday, with the most number of vaccines and tests carried out.

There were 56,843 vaccines administered yesterday - the most in a single day. Ardern said 72 percent of NZers aged 40+ are either booked or have been vaccinated with at least one dose.

"This is great progress," Ardern said.

More than 150,000 vaccination booking were made yesterday.

Yesterday was also the day the most Covid-19 tests were processed in a single day, with 41,464 tests completed.

"The fact we have achieved both these results on the same day is extraordinary and is exactly what we need to do to get on top of the outbreak and for the future."

There are 14 community testing stations open across Auckland today, Ardern said.

The Prime Minister yesterday announced the alert level 4 lockdown would continue until at least midnight Tuesday.

Since then, new cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed at the University of Auckland and two more Auckland schools. In addition, the list of locations of interest has been growing.