Wastewater testing in West Auckland has revealed no traces of Covid-19 for the first time in two weeks, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says.
It comes as most of the country moved down to Alert Level 3 this morning while Auckland and Northland remain at Level 4.
"The latest results from ESR [Institute of Environmental Science and Research] show no unexpected detections to report," Bloomfield said in a press conference announcing Wednesday's Covid case numbers.
There were 75 new cases announced on Wednesday afternoon, but Bloomfield said the reproduction rate of the virus is still promising and the number of cases will continue to decline.
Meanwhile, a sample collected from Moa Point, in Wellington, on Monday returned a negative result "for the first time since the 19th of August", he said.
Bloomfield added that Covid-19 had not been detected in the sample collected from the wider Christchurch wastewater treatment plant.
"While Covid-19 continues to be detected in a number of locations across Tamaki Mākaurau, for the first time since the 18th of August, it was not detected in a sample taken from the western Auckland network."
Most of the country woke up to new freedoms today in Alert Level 3. (Source: Other)
Samples collected from locations around Northland are expected on Thursday ahead of the region's planned move to join the rest of the country - barring Auckland - at Level 3.
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