3 September, 1pm 

Today there are 28 new cases linked to the Delta outbreak, the lowest daily case update since Sunday 22 August.

27 of these cases are in Auckland and one in Wellington. The case in Wellington was a close contact of an existing case and is already in a managed isolation facility. 

This brings the total outbreak to 764. Of these, 33 are now recovered, making the total active cases 731.

43 cases are in hospital, all in Tāmaki Makaurau. Nine of these cases are in the intensive care unit, three of which are on ventilators. 

This is the second day in a row where the new cases numbers have continued to decline.

Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay says “while this fall in today’s numbers is encouraging, these outbreaks can have a long tail and we can’t afford to become complacent”.

Ongoing investigation by Auckland Regional Public Health has resulted in the total number of unlinked cases in this cluster falling from 65 to 31. Dr McElnay says that we can “expect this number to continue to fall”.

Dr McElnay also confirmed that 71 percent of New Zealanders aged 12 and over are either booked in to have their vaccine or have been vaccinated with at least one dose.

Last night Northland moved to alert level 3, making Tāmaki Makaurau the only region in the country to remain at alert level 4.

Auckland will not be moving alert levels until at least Tuesday 14th September.