There are 75 new Covid-19 cases in the community today, up from 49 reported yesterday, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has announced.
Bloomfield gave the latest figures during Wednesday's 1pm Covid-19 briefing in Wellington alongside Minister for Covid-19 Response Chris Hipkins.
The total number of cases in the current Delta outbreak is now 687 while New Zealand's confirmed cases to date since the pandemic began is 3,288 .
The cases break down to seven sub-clusters with the two largest groups being the Māngere church with 320 and Birkdale social network with 73.
Overall, 34,832 contacts have been identified with the latest outbreak with 91 per cent tested so far.
The announcement of new cases come as the majority of New Zealand moved to Alert Level 3 this morning with Auckland and Northland the only two regions which are still at Level 4.
The Director General of Health said 57 per cent of the cases reported yesterday were household contacts and 75 per cent didn’t create new exposure events.
He added that 32 people infected with Covid-19 are currently in hospital. Eight are in ICU, three of which are on ventilators.
Bloomfield said the reproduction rate of the virus is still promising and the number of cases will continue to decline.
Bloomfield said the latest samples from wastewater facilities around New Zealand didn't have any unexpected results with tests in Wellington and Christchurch also returning negative tests after recent positives.
With locations of interest , Dr Bloomfield said 40 supermarkets across Auckland will be added to the Ministry of Health's list on their website.
The risk from the supermarkets is considered low though and the advice for people who were there at the time is to monitor symptoms.
On the vaccine front, 84,971 doses were administered yesterday taking New Zealand's vaccination count to date to 3.5 million overall.
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