There are 21 new Covid-19 cases in the community on Tuesday, all of which are in Auckland, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has confirmed.
The total number of cases in this Delta outbreak is now 841, of which 147 cases have since recovered.
Meanwhile, there is one additional case which is yet to be determined if it is a border or community case.
There remains 24 unlinked cases in this outbreak, but that number is down from 33 on Monday. Bloomfield said the number is expected to continue to fall.
All the new cases are in Auckland, and takes NZ’s total of cases in the current outbreak to 841. (Source: Other)
Analysis of Monday's cases found 17, or 85 per cent, were contacts of known cases and 16, or 80 per cent, were household contacts who were already isolating.
Bloomfield said four people were potentially infectious in the community, with eight exposure sites.
There are 127 locations of interest on the Ministry of Health website .
"Clearly all the numbers are moving in the right direction which is reassuring," Bloomfield said.
However, he added there were 39 people with Covid-19 in Auckland hospitals. Of these, six are in intensive care and four require ventilation.
There are now 37,971 contacts, of which 91 per cent have had at least one Covid-19 test.
On Monday, 7255 tests were processed in New Zealand, including 5852 in Auckland.
There has been 3.06 million tests processed in New Zealand since the pandemic began.
"The most important message from me again today is if you have symptoms please get tested in Auckland or indeed wherever you are in the country," Bloomfield said.
On Monday there were 66,310 vaccine doses administered, made up of 44,641 first doses and 21,669 second doses.
In total, there has been more than 3.95 million doses administered in New Zealand.
There has been no unexpected Covid-19 detections in wastewater testing in the past 24 hours.
There were no border cases to report on Tuesday.
"We are accelerating the rollout of saliva testing as an option for more workers," Bloomfield said.
"We are currently finalising a contract with a further saliva testing provider and expect that this will soon be an option for workers who might need weekly testing because they are travelling across the Auckland boundary.
"The details of how that saliva-based testing will be available are being firmed up now and it will be complementary to the PCR-based nasopharyngeal swabbing."
The update comes as all of New Zealand, excluding Auckland, moves to Alert Level 2 at 11.59pm. Auckland remains in Level 4.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern joined Bloomfield for Tuesday's update.
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