Microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles says Kiwis shouldn't get complacent if the country enters Level 2 next week, and that the best thing for the country right now would actually be "another week or two" at Level 3.
Cabinet will meet on Monday next week to decide whether to drop the alert level to 2, which would allow much greater social interaction, but Dr Wiles told TVNZ 1's Breakfast this morning that people should still err on the side of caution.
"Level 2 is the 'play it safe', and we really need to know that we are safely there - and I'm afraid we don't know that yet," she said.
"The virus has this incubation period, so it's roughly 2-10 days before somebody knows that they are unwell - but unfortunately people are infectious before they become unwell for a few days.
"So if we move too fast, we'll see a resurgence of cases but we won't see them for a few weeks.
"So my slight concern at the moment is that people are really excited because we've had a couple of days with no cases - but all of that reflects what happened two weeks ago when we were still at Level 4.
"We still don't know what the impact of Level 3 has been."
Dr Wiles said it was clear that some people and businesses had been misbehaving in terms of social distancing at Level 3.
She said, in terms of emerging Covid-19 cases, "Monday will only really reflect the beginning of Level 3.
"What we really need probably, and I know this is awful, is another week or two to make sure that there was nothing that started that has triggered something else."
Dr Wiles pointed to Melbourne, Australia as an example, where they had really low numbers of cases and so eased restrictions - right before another cluster of cases popped up.
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