"Crass and stupid" - Auckland mayor Phil Goff has hit out at anti-lockdown protesters who held up traffic on roads throughout the country today.
Auckland mayor Phil Goff Photo: RNZ/Nick Monro
Police are promising to follow up on any offences or breaches of the laws after the Freedoms and rights Coalition protest group took to the roads, driving slowly.
On Facebook today, Goff said he came across them as he was returning from a vaccination event at Mt Smart Stadium.
He said their vehicles spread across three lanes of the motorway, doing 50 kilometres an hour and deliberately blocking people from going about their business.
Goff said they were spreading disinformation and lies about Covid-19 and vaccinations.
Cases and vaccination rates
There are 175 new community cases of Covid-19 - 26 fewer than yesterday's total.
Of those 159 are in Auckland, two in Northland, eight in Waikato, one in Taupō and the five previously announced cases in Taranaki.
The two new Northland cases have clear links to known cases.
And 93 people are in hospital - all in Auckland and eight more than yesterday.
Nine patients are in intensive care or a high dependency unit.
The latest wastewater result for the Taranaki town of Stratford has not detected Covid-19.
Just over 2000 first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine are needed for the whole country to officially reach the 90 percent milestone.
The latest figures from the Ministry of Health show Auckland DHB is the first to surpass more than 95 percent of the eligible population to have their first dose.
Nationally, about 80 percent have had a second dose.
MIQ
From tomorrow mandatory Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) stays will be shortened.
Hotel stays are being cut to seven days' duration for returnees, to be followed by three days of self-isolation.
It means about 2600 people can leave tomorrow.
Returnee Franz Rieger said it was bizarre that he was staying in a managed isolation hotel in Auckland, where healthy people who had tested negative for Covid-19 got checked by nurses, while hundreds of locals were sick with the virus in their homes.