Alert Level 4 lockdown till Friday for NZ, August 31 for Auckland

The country will remain at Alert Level 4 lockdown until at least 11.59pm, Friday August 27, while Auckland will stay at Level 4 until 11.59pm Tuesday August 31.

Auckland's Alert Level will be reviewed next Monday, August 30, while the rest of New Zealand will be reviewed on Friday afternoon, August 27. 

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made the announcement today, alongside Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

"There remains a number of unanswered questions," Ardern said. "We have some way to go yet."

"We need more certainty. We don't want to take any risks with Delta," she said. 

She said Cabinet decided to keep the rest of New Zealand in lockdown until at least Friday night to compile "additional data and assurances to whether the virus has spread from the existing sites and how contained it's likely to be".  

On what they would look for in order for parts of New Zealand to move down alert levels, she said they would consider if any new cases emerge outside Auckland, whether waste water results remain negative and if cases do emerge in other parts of the country, whether or not they were already in isolation.

She said Auckland needed to be at Level 4 for the full 14 day Covid cycle, which was why it was in lockdown until at least August 31. 

Ardern also warned that the number of Covid-19 community cases may continue to get worse, before they get better.

Ardern said additional time at Level 4 was due to the "head-start" that Delta had in New Zealand, that they did not think New Zealand had hit its peak cases per day due to the high number of potential contacts. 

Jacinda Ardern said they were still getting to grips with the extent of the outbreak.

There are currently more than 320 locations of interest. 

It comes as the country's Delta outbreak reached 107 cases in total today, with 35 new daily Covid-19 community cases. Ardern warned the public on Saturday she expected cases to continue to rise into this week .

As of 8am this morning, there was 13,230 contacts identified, expected to rise during the day. Of that number, 42 per cent have had a test, while 6,773 had been contacted by public health staff and were isolating.

Yesterday, 35,800 Covid-19 vaccine doses were administrated. Of the total number of vaccines received, more than one million had been fully vaccinated, while another 1.77 million had received just one dose.

Ardern announced last Friday that the entire country would remain at Alert Level 4 until at least Tuesday, August 24 11.59pm - in line with Auckland and the Coromandel. She said this would be reviewed on Monday, August 23. 

New Zealand went into Alert Level 4 at 11.59pm on August 17, initially for at least a week for Auckland and the Coromandel and three-days for the rest of the country.

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