'Always encouraging' - No new Covid-19 community cases reported overnight, Chris Hipkins says

March 3, 2021

But The Covid-19 Response Minister says it’s too early to look at moving out of lockdown.

No community Covid-19 cases have been reported overnight, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins has confirmed.

Speaking on Breakfast this morning, Hipkins said it was still early in the day but the result was “always encouraging”.

The Covid-19 Response Minister reiterated that the next two days would be critical in knowing how big the Auckland cluster had become.

“If we're going to start to see any big number of cases we’d expect to see evidence of that in the next 24 to 48 hours,” he said.

Covid-19 testing station in Wiri, South Auckland.

Hipkins would not be drawn on the likelihood of Auckland moving down to Alert Level 2 at the end of this current seven-day period.

“We’ll let people know well in advance of the end of the current seven-day period but at this point I wouldn’t want to speculate on that.”

Auckland was plunged into a seven-day lockdown on Sunday morning after a man tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday. The 21-year-old South Auckland man breached Covid-19 rules by going out and about when he should have been isolating.

The rest of New Zealand moved to Alert Level 2 on Sunday for seven days.

No new Covid-19 community cases have been recorded in New Zealand for the last two days in a row.

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