The Ministry of Health is reporting 49 new Covid cases, all in Auckland.
This follows 75 cases on Wednesday.
Northland will be moved down to Level 3 from Thursday night after all-clear wastewater results, while 96% of the people identified as contacts of positive cases in Northland had returned test results - and all negative.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said he believed there was now a "95%" probability the 'R' value was under 1 - meaning that infected numbers could be expected to keep come down.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that 14% (seven) of the latest 49 people testing positive were regarded as infectious in the community. That's down from a percentage of 36% in the figures reported on Wednesday - although the 36% figure then was up from 25% the day before.
Arden said the 36% figure largely stemmed from essential workers. She said most of the essential worker cases were people contracting the virus outside of the workforce. Increased surveillance testing was being looked at.
There are 42 people in hospital - all in Auckland. Six of these are in ICU with three on ventilators.
There were 17,683 tests processed on Wednesday.
There were 6700 swabs taken in Auckland on Wednesday.
Bloomfield said: "We need to have higher levels of testing to give us confidence we are getting this under control." He urged people with symptoms or visiting places of interest to get tested.
This is the detailed update from the Ministry of Health:
| Cases | |
| Number of new community cases | 49 |
| Number of new cases identified at the border | 4 |
| Location of new cases | Auckland (49) |
| Location of community cases (total) | Auckland 720; Wellington 16 |
| Number of community cases (total) | 736 (in current community outbreak) |
| Cases infectious in the community | 36% of yesterday’s cases have exposure events |
| Cases in isolation throughout the period they were infected | 64% of yesterday’s cases |
| Cases epidemiologically linked | 34 of today’s cases |
| Cases to be epidemiologically linked | 15 of today’s cases |
| Cases epidemiologically linked (total) | 671 (in current cluster) (65 unlinked) |
| Number of sub-clusters | Seven. The two largest subclusters are the Mangere church group: 332; and Birkdale social network cluster: 75 |
| Cases in hospital | 42 (total): North Shore (8); Middlemore (19); Auckland (15). |
| Cases in ICU or HDU | 6 |
| Confirmed cases (total) | 3,340 since pandemic began |
| Historical cases, since 1 Jan 2021 (total) | 126 out of 1,526 since 1 Jan 2021 |
| Contacts | |
| Number of contacts identified (total) | 37,359 |
| Percentage who have received outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements) | 81% |
| Percentage with at least one test result | 86% |
| Locations of interest | |
| Locations of interest (total) | 308 (as at 12pm, 2 September) |
| Tests | |
| Number of tests (total) | 3,024,268 |
| Number of tests total (last 24 hours) | 17,683 |
| Tests in Auckland (last 24 hours) | 6,757 |
| Tests rolling average (last 7 days) | 24,222 |
| Testing centres in Auckland | 25 |
| Wastewater | |
| Wastewater detections | No unexpected detections in past 24 hours |
| Whole genome sequencing | |
| Links to current outbreak | 469 cases to date have been sequenced. |
| COVID-19 vaccine update | |
| Vaccines administered to date (total) | 3.59m; 1st doses: 2.35m; 2nd doses: 1.23m |
| Vaccines administered yesterday (total) | 89,546; 1st doses: 62,218; 2nd doses: 27,328 |
| Mâori | 1st doses: 215,248; 2nd doses: 110,762 |
| Pacific Peoples | 1st doses:138,733; 2nd doses: 75,578 |
| NZ COVID-19 tracer | |
| Registered users (total) | 3,132,649 |
| Poster scans (total) | 335,540,705 |
| Manual diary entries (total) | 15,136,609 |
| Poster scans in 24 hours to midday yesterday | 983,104 |
*There may be some delays in providing data in some instances. On these occasions we will use data from the day before and clearly note this.
New cases identified at the border
| Arrival date | From | Via | Positive test day/reason | Managed isolation/quarantine location |
| 28 August* | Afghanistan | Australia | Day 3 / routine | Auckland |
| 28 August* | Afghanistan | Australia | Day 3 / routine | Auckland |
| 28 August | Germany | Singapore | Day 3 / routine | Auckland |
| 30 August | United Kingdom | United Arab Emirates | Day 1 / routine | Auckland |
*These cases were in a travel bubble together.
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