Epidemiologist Michael Baker says there are two key issues Cabinet will be looking at, as it reviews New Zealand's Covid-19 Alert Levels tomorrow.
At this stage, Auckland is in Level 3 and the rest of the country at Level 2 until next Wednesday, but the Government is reviewing that tomorrow.
It could mean the Alert Levels are reduced, or raised, or the lockdown shortened or extended depending on requirements.
As Auckland passes one week of the new lockdown, public health expert Professor Michael Baker says it's a good time to be reviewing the rules.
"We really had to wait a whole week to know if this was going to work or not, because the incubation period of the virus is around six days," he told 1 NEWS.
"So it means that when you implement a lockdown, and all the other measures, it really takes a week to know if that's working.
In the past seven days, there have been 63 new community cases of Covid-19. The vast majority are linked to the cluster revealed last Tuesday, while another outbreak has also been identified linked to a maintenance worker at a managed isolation facility.
Mr Baker says that's a good sign.
"The fact the case numbers have stayed flat or maybe even declining somewhat today, I think is very good news and suggests that this outbreak is being contained," he says.
"Obviously we'll have to wait another week and then we'll see the full effect of the lockdown, but I think this is very good news so far."
He says there are two key points that Cabinet will be looking at when deciding to lift the lockdown or not.
One is around contact tracing: making sure further transmission is being stamped out by the lockdown.
The other is making sure other cases aren't turning up in the community.
As for tracking down the initial source of the outbreak, which is still under investigation, Mr Baker says it's not overly important in the grand scheme of things.
"It would also be helpful to ultimately identify the source of these two outbreaks, because they are quite mysterious," he says.
"We might get some useful information from more of the genomic testing and seeing lines of transmission there, but they may actually remain mysteries, these two chains of transmission."
When asked today, Health Minister Chris Hipkins echoed Mr Baker's comments, adding they'll be looking at the latest information right up to the hour before Cabinet meets.
"There's not an exhaustive hard and fast set of rules here, so it ultimately comes down to judgements but those are the sorts of pieces of information that we'd look at," he says.
"It won't just be one thing, there'll be a whole variety of aspects and how they interact with one another will have an impact."
Chris Hipkins said Cabinet would be looking at Covid-19 cases, but would not say if a decision on changing levels would be made tomorrow. (Source: Other)
Meanwhile Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says they'll also be looking at whether there's any further spread outside of Auckland.
"The way I think about it is the extent to which we're confident we have found the boundaries of the current outbreak and in a sense through our contact tracing, have been able to draw the net tightly around it, so those are critical pieces of information," he says.
"The other piece of information that we have to report to Cabinet is are we confident in our lab capacity and our contact tracing capacity, and both of those are in good shape, so that will be helpful."
At this stage, the Level 3 lockdown remains in place in Auckland until midnight on Wednesday, with the rest of the country in Level 2 for the same amount of time.
It would mean two full weeks of Level 3 for Auckland after the community transmission cluster was first identified.
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