The Ministry of Health is reporting 14 new Covid cases, including one in the Upper Hauraki area that is a household contact of the earlier reported cases.
Just one of the latest cases is unlinked.
The latest case numbers follow 22 cases on Monday. Nine of those cases were infectious in the community.
Auckland is moving down to Level 3 as of Wednesday.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the lower numbers on Tuesday were encouraging, but he expected the numbers would "bounce around". He said based on contacts of known cases that were now in isolation there were another likely 50-60 positive cases likely to result just from that group.
There are 15 people in hospital - all in Auckland. Four of these are in ICU.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was urging Auckland to get its vaccination rate up to 90% (with at least one dose) by the time Cabinet next assesses alert levels in two weeks.
Ardern announced an increase in the penalties for people breaking the Covid rules. The maximum fine for an individual rises from $300 to $4000. If it's a court-imposed fine the maximum moves up from $1000 to $12,000.
This is the detailed update from the Ministry of Health:
| Cases | |
| Number of new community cases * | 14 |
| Number of new cases identified at the border | One historical case |
| Location of new cases | Auckland, Upper Hauraki |
| Location of community cases (total) | Auckland (including 4 cases in Upper Hauraki*) 1,068 (773 of whom have recovered); Wellington 17 (all of whom have recovered); |
| Number of community cases (total) | 1,085 (in current community outbreak) |
| Cases infectious in the community | Nine (41%) of yesterday’s cases have exposure events |
| Cases in isolation throughout the period they were infectious | 10 (45%) of yesterday’s cases |
| Cases epidemiologically linked | 13 of today’s cases |
| Cases to be epidemiologically linked | One of today’s cases |
| Cases epidemiologically linked (total) | 1,054 (in current cluster) (10 unlinked from past fortnight) |
| Number of sub-clusters | Ten epidemiologically linked subclusters. Of these, two are active, seven are contained and one is dormant. There are eleven epidemiologically unlinked subclusters. Of these, three are active, three are contained and five are dormant |
| Cases in hospital | 15 (total): North Shore (1); Auckland (4); Middlemore (10). |
| Cases in ICU or HDU | Four |
| Confirmed cases (total) | 3,739 since pandemic began |
| Historical cases, since 1 Jan 2021 (total) | 152 out of 1,921 since 1 Jan 2021 |
| Contacts | |
| Number of active contacts being managed (total) | 1,375 |
| Percentage who have received an outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements) | 87% |
| Percentage with at least one test result | 84% |
| Locations of interest | |
| Locations of interest (total) | 135 (as at 10am 21 September) |
| Tests | |
| Number of tests (total) | 3,248,982 |
| Total number of laboratory tests processed (last 24 hours) | 8,346 |
| Tests rolling average (last 7 days) | 12,971 |
| Swabs taken in Auckland (last 24 hours) | 8,588 |
| Testing centres in Auckland | 24 |
| Wastewater | |
| Wastewater detections | No unexpected detections in ESR’s latest testing |
| COVID-19 vaccine update | |
| Vaccines administered to date (total) | 4,762,679; 1st doses: 3,118,082; 2nd doses: 1,644,597 |
| Vaccines administered yesterday (total) | 50,196; 1st doses: 24,522; 2nd doses: 25,674 |
| Mâori | 1st doses: 294,099; 2nd doses: 143,416 |
| Pacific Peoples | 1st doses: 190,538, 2nd doses: 100,575 |
| NZ COVID-19 tracer | |
| Registered users (total) | 3,237,146 |
| Poster scans (total) | 373,119,386 |
| Manual diary entries (total) | 16,706,087 |
| Poster scans in 24 hours to midday yesterday | 2,127,881 |
Historical cases identified at the border
| Arrival date | From | Via | Positive test day/reason | Managed isolation/quarantine location |
| 17 September | United States of America | Direct flight | Day 0 / routine | Christchurch |
*Today’s cases
Today’s number of community cases includes one positive result from Upper Hauraki. This was a household contact who was tested yesterday.
Two previously confirmed cases from Saturday and from yesterday have now been reclassified as under investigation. As a result, today’s net increase is 13 cases.
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