There are 89 new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today, after this morning's revelation of two cases in Christchurch.
File image. Photo: 123RF
The Ministry of Health said 83 of the new cases are in Auckland and four are in Waikato. Two were reported in Christchurch yesterday, but the Covid-19 Response Minister said this afternoon that Cabinet has decided to keep the region at alert level 2.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said there was one case in an MIQ worker, with work being done to identify if this is a community case.
Fifty of today's cases remain unlinked. There are 293 unlinked cases from the past 14 days.
There were also seven cases in managed isolation
There are 37 people in hospital, with five in intensive care.
The four new community cases in Waikato today include three in Hamilton and one in Ôtorohanga, and are all contacts of existing cases. Just three cases in the Waikato have not been epidemiologically linked to the outbreak, although they have been geneologically linked.
Yesterday there were 74 new community cases of Covid-19 reported: 68 in Auckland and six in Waikato.
There have now been 2921 cases in the current Delta outbreak.
In Auckland suburbs Wiri, Drury, Henderson and Manurewa are being added to the list of suburbs with high-positive case numbers. Bayswater has dropped off the list.
All four of the close contacts of the person who travelled to Blenheim have tested negative. They remain in isolation and will be tested again.
No further contacts or locations of interest have been identified in Blenheim.
There were 39,220 vaccine doses given yesterday - 10,908 first doses and 28,312 second doses.
Dr Bloomfield also said Medsafe had now renewed provisional approval of the Pfizer vaccine, for a further two years. The company must continue to supply data from around the world.
Medsafe can decide to grant full approval at any time in the next two years if Pfizer requests it.
He said three of the vaccines administered in jurisdictions overseas are now recognised in the vaccination order for border workers. These are Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen.