After a nervous week when Auckland was watched closely in case its cluster of community Covid-19 cases spread still further, the northern city dropped to Alert Level 2 yesterday morning and the rest of the country to Level 1.
Since the community case scare a week ago, an extra 68,000 people signed up for the ministry’s contact tracing app.
It had been used almost 1.5million times in the 24 hours to 1pm yesterday.
The alert level change was good news for southern music fans, with chart-topping band Crowded House confirming its concerts in Dunedin on Thursday and Queenstown on Saturday would go ahead as planned.
Dunedin Fringe Festival organisers and participants were also relieved at the return to Level 1, considerably improving the prospects of the event being able to start on March 18 as planned.
The University of Otago announced that today would be a transition day, as it changed from online teaching, as per Level 2, to Level 1 teaching conditions from tomorrow onwards.
Auckland is planned to remain at Alert Level 2 until 6am next Sunday, March 14.
— Additional reporting Radio New Zealand.
