There are 35 new Covid-19 cases in the community today, the Ministry of Health has confirmed.
The new cases are made up of 33 in Auckland and two in Wellington.
The total number of cases in this outbreak is now 107, made up of 99 in Auckland and eight in Wellington.
"As previously indicated, it's not unexpected to see a rise in daily case numbers at this stage. At its peak last year, New Zealand had a daily total of 89 new cases," the Ministry of Health said.
All of today's new cases have been moved to managed isolation under strict infection prevention and control procedures, including the use of full PPE (personal protective equipment).
"Of the 107 cases in the cluster, 72 are already epidemiologically linked to other community cases identified in the outbreak," the Ministry of Health said in a statement today.
"Investigations are continuing to determine whether and how the remaining 35 cases are linked to the outbreak, however most have a plausible link on initial assessment, for example, people were at a location of interest.
"We will continue to release this information and new locations of interest as it becomes available."
ESR also continues to run whole genome sequencing on cases. Yesterday, 29 samples were sequenced and all were confirmed as being linked to the Auckland outbreak.
As of 8am Monday, 13,230 contacts have been identified, the majority of which are close contacts.
"This number will increase throughout the day, as records are fully processed," the ministry said.
Of these contacts, 6773 have been contacted by public health staff and are self-isolating, and 42 per cent have had a test. Work is underway to contact the remaining 6457 contacts.
"We are continuing to add locations of interest as interviews from confirmed cases completed by public health staff. There are now more than 280 locations of interest listed on the Ministry’s website," the ministry said.
Click here for the latest contact tracing locations of interest from the Ministry of Health.
"We're reminding people that a Section 70 notice remains in place, placing a legal requirement on all people who were at locations of interest at the relevant times to follow the instructions regarding isolation and testing.
"It is also very important that essential workers regularly check the locations of interest so they can isolate immediately and get tested if they have been at any of these locations at the relevant times."
The ministry added that another Section 70 notice is in place, applying that to household members of those who have been at locations of interest or have been categorised as a close contact.
These household members are required to isolate until the contact has returned a negative day-five test result, but they are not required to get a test themselves unless they develop symptoms.
The new notice does not apply to people who are required to provide an essential health service as long as they are vaccinated, the household member who visited the location of interest has had a negative result, and no one in the house has symptoms.
Yesterday, 35,800 vaccines, made up of 26,835 first doses and 8,965 second doses, were administered. As of midnight, there has now been more than 2.78 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine administered.
Today's update was provided in a statement as Cabinet is today meeting to discuss New Zealand's Covid-19 alert levels.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will speak at 4pm, where she will reveal whether the nationwide Alert Level 4 restrictions will be extended beyond Tuesday night.
As well today, there are three new border cases.
Two of the cases, travelling in a family bubble, arrived in Auckland from Belgium on August 5. They are contacts of previously reported cases.
The remaining border case arrived in Christchurch from Singapore on August 17.
The total number of active cases being managed in New Zealand is currently 154.
Yesterday, 35,766 tests were processed across New Zealand.
"Testing centres in Auckland had another busy day yesterday with just over 17,000 swabs taken across Auckland, with around 11,000 at community testing centres and around 6,000 at general practice and urgent care clinics. This was our biggest day to date at our community testing centres," the Ministry of Health said.
The total number of Covid-19 tests processed by laboratories to date is 2.72 million.
The Covid Tracer app now has more than 3 million registered users.
There were no positive Covid-19 detections in wastewater to report today.
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