Level 3 restrictions will be further loosened in Auckland from 11:59pm on Tuesday.
Cabinet has decided Auckland will move from Step 1 to Step 2, as signalled last week and outlined below.
Auckland, over the weekend, hit the 90% single dose mark across all three of the region's district health boards, meaning over 90% of over-12s have now had at least one dose of the vaccine.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expected Auckland to hit the 90% fully vaccinated mark by the end of the month.
Regardless, she said there was a "strong expectation" Auckland would move to the red setting of the traffic light system (see below) after Cabinet meets on November 29.
The traffic light system will effectively make it difficult for unvaccinated people to attend events, get haircuts and go to bars and restaurants.
Should Cabinet decide to move Auckland to the new framework, Ardern couldn't say whether this would happen straight away, or within several days, or by mid-December for example. She said Cabinet would be "pragmatic".
Until Auckland gets to this point, it'll keep working its way through the step system. In other words, it could get to Step 3, which would see hospitality reopen, before the traffic light system is used.
Ardern said she will next week put a date on when the Auckland border will reopen.
She assured Aucklanders will be able to leave Auckland over the summer break and for Christmas, even if the rest of New Zealand hasn't hit the 90% fully vaccinated mark.
She said the Government is still working out how vaccine certificates and/or testing might be used to manage the risks associated with movement in and out of Auckland.
When Ardern released the traffic light system a few weeks ago, she said all district health boards outside of Auckland would need to meet the 90% double-vaxxed mark for a move to the orange level in the new framework to be made.
Ardern said Cabinet would check in on things on November 29, and possibly look to move the South Island to the new framework if it has reached 90%, ahead of the North Island (excluding Auckland). This remains the plan.
But, Ardern hinted at some openness to possibly using vaccine certificates (which are a key part of the traffic light system), ahead of the whole country moving to the new system. She reiterated, Cabinet would review the status of "every part of the country" on November 29.
Here are the latest figures released by the Ministry of Health earlier in the day:
| COVID-19 vaccine update | |
| Total first and second vaccines administered to date (percentage of eligible people) | 7,056,440; 3,755,550 first doses (89%); 3,300,890 second doses (78%) |
| Total first and second vaccines administered yesterday | 14,280; 3,272 first doses; 11,008 second doses |
| Mâori (percentage of eligible people) | 749,756; 424,366 first doses (74%); 325,390 second doses (57%) |
| Pacific Peoples (percentage of eligible people) | 456,982; 248,532 first doses (87%); 208,450 second doses (73%) |
| Total first and second vaccines administered to Auckland residents yesterday | 4,512; 892 first doses; 3,620 second doses |
| Vaccination rates by DHB (with active cases) | |
| Northland DHB (percentage of eligible people | 239,960; 130,309 first doses (81%); 109,651 second doses (68%) |
| Auckland metro DHBs (percentage of eligible people | 2,515,971; 1,319,774 first doses (92%); 1,196,197 second doses (83%) |
| Waikato DHB (percentage of eligible people | 584,797; 313,999 first doses (88%); 270,798 second doses (76%) |
| Canterbury DHB (percentage of eligible people | 825,689; 446,796 first doses (93%); 378,893 second doses (78%) |
| Hospitalisations * | |
| Cases in hospital | 81 (total, up from 74 yesterday): North Shore (26); Waitakere (1); Middlemore (26); Auckland (27); Whangarei (1) |
| Average age of current hospitalisations | 51 |
| Cases in ICU or HDU | Seven |
| Cases * | |
| Seven day rolling average of community cases | 148 |
| Number of new community cases | 190 |
| Number of new cases identified at the border | Three |
| Location of new community cases | Auckland (182), Waikato (7) Northland (1) |
| Location of community cases (total) | Auckland 4,337 (1,731 of whom have recovered); Waikato 163 (68 of whom have recovered); Wellington 17 (all of whom have recovered); Northland 19 (6 of whom have recovered); Nelson/Marlborough 1 (who has recovered); Canterbury 4 (all active) |
| Number of community cases (total) | 4,541 (in current community outbreak) |
| Confirmed cases (total) | 7,287 |
| Historical cases | 186 out of 5,474 cases since 1 January |
| Cases infectious in the community | 37 of yesterday’s cases have exposure events |
| Cases in isolation throughout the period they were infectious | 74 of yesterday’s cases have no exposure events |
| Cases epidemiologically linked | 80 of today’s cases |
| Cases to be epidemiologically linked | 110 of today’s cases |
| Cases epidemiologically linked (total) | 3,585 (in the current cluster) (700 unlinked from the past 14 days) |
| Contacts | |
| Number of active contacts being managed (total): | 4,130 |
| Percentage who have received an outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements) | 76% |
| Percentage who have returned at least one result | 72% |
| Locations of interest | |
| Locations of interest (total) | 192 (as at 8am 8 November) |
| Tests | |
| Number of tests (total) | 4,298,145 |
| Number of tests total (last 24 hours) | 18,742 |
| Tests processed in Auckland (last 24 hours) | 8,127 |
| Tests rolling average (last 7 days) | 26,124 |
| Testing centres in Auckland | 19 |
| Wastewater | |
| Wastewater detections | No unexpected detections |
| NZ COVID Tracer | |
| Registered users (total) | 3,350,770 |
| Poster scans (total) | 486,886,537 |
| Manual diary entries (total) | 19,757,073 |
| Poster scans in 24 hours to midday yesterday | 2,039,388 |
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