New Zealanders will remain at alert levels 2 and 3 for now as director-general of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield revealed 11 new Covid-19 cases, of which nine are in the community.
Bloomfield addressed media alongside Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Friday afternoon. Of the nine community cases, five are linked to churches and four to household contacts of previous cases.
Ardern said the current settings would remain for now and Cabinet would consider whether they needed to change on Monday.
Auckland is scheduled to be in alert level 3 and the rest of the country in level 2 until 11.59pm on Wednesday, August 26.
There was no chance of New Zealand moving alert levels on Monday and the announcement would instead be looking ahead until Wednesday.
Ardern wouldn't be drawn on whether Auckland might move straight to level 1 from level 3.
11 new cases today
Five of the nine cases in the community are linked to churches in South Auckland. Tracing and testing of close contacts are in progress. Four household contacts of previous cases. Two were in managed isolation.
Eighty-eight of the 89 cases in the community are part of the Auckland cluster and one is still under investigation.
What will influence Monday's decision
Ardern said there were several factors to consider on Monday, including trends in the transmission of data, contact tracing capacity, effectiveness of border measures and the health system's capacity.
Broader factors include the effects on the local economy, on at-risk populations, public compliance and the ability to operationalise alert level settings.
The decision will also be based on Bloomfield's advice. He will consider case numbers and the pattern of those cases. He will also look at modelling from Professor Shaun Hendy's team about what might happen under different scenarios.
Alert level 3 - which Auckland has been in since August 12 - had played a critical role in finding the outbreak's perimeter and cases had been found early, Ardern said.
"There are, however, a small handful of cases where symptoms rather than contact tracers have caused someone to get a test."
Those cases were slightly more problematic, but that didn't mean New Zealand wasn't on top of the current outbreak.
Ardern said people mingling in social areas could have seen the outbreak explode, and Auckland's lockdown-lite compliance had made a difference.
"There is nothing to suggest we need to change our course and certainly nothing to suggest we need to elevate alert settings. We have completed 170,515 tests since our current alert settings began."
Contact-tracing was meeting the standard of contacting 80 per cent of close contacts within 48 hours, she said.
"New Zealand is among a small number of countries that still has a low rate of Covid cases," said Ardern - making a comparison with the United States.
It may have been a subtle reply to US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly claimed New Zealand's Covid outbreak was out of control.
There have only been two arrests under alert level 3, Ardern said, and Google data showed Aucklanders were moving even less than the last time the city was under the same restrictions.
St Lukes worker may have caught Covid on bus
It was revealed today that genome sequencing has now also linked a St Lukes worker to the existing Auckland cluster, and they may have caught Covid-19 by sharing the same bus ride as another positive case.
Bloomfield said this underlined the importance of wearing a mask on public transport.
If there is a link to the bus trip between the St Lukes case and another positive case, bus card data can be used to contact all the people on the bus at that time, Bloomfield said.
"This bus journey, the morning of August 12, was just before Auckland went into alert level 3. That's the value of having that wider restriction on movement."
That means even if there was infection on the bus, other people on it should have been at home since the bus journey.
Ardern said a discussion has been had about having QR codes on buses, but the hot card in Auckland already provided that data.
Other cities didn't have the same data for bus cards, and Ardern said tracer apps were being looked at in those cities.
Eight people in hospital
There are eight people receiving hospital-level care for Covid-19 - two in Auckland City Hospital, one in North Shore and five in Middlemore.
One person at Middlemore remains in ICU.
One person in Waikato was hospitalised, but not related to Covid-19.
There are 143 people linked to the Auckland cluster who have been moved into the Auckland quarantine facility. This includes 70 people who have tested positive.
There are now 1315 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and 105 active cases.
The two imported cases have been transferred to the Jet Park Hotel.
There were 15,714 tests conducted yesterday.
What happens in future outbreaks?
The resurgence plan, Ardern said, meant that level 3 wouldn't always have to be used for future outbreaks.
This one was different because South Auckland had higher population density with many social gatherings, she said.
The Rydges worker case
The Prime Minister said the Rydges case - where a maintenance worker tested positive - showed how the system should work, where genome sequencing pinpointed a link to an overseas arrival and close contacts were quickly isolated.
The Auckland cluster had many possible origins, and was highly unlikely to be linked to the first outbreak in New Zealand, she said.
It hasn't been linked to any of the strains on record so far, and questions about possible interactions with border-facing workers or overseas arrivals haven't shed any more light. Nor has the surface investigations at Americold.
"We may not find all the answers for this cluster," Ardern said.
But as long as the cluster is contained, restrictions can be lifted.
Bloomfield said the testing of border-facing workers had almost been completed, and a second round would be held. They would be regularly tested going forward, he added.
Ardern thanked the efforts of New Zealanders, but especially Aucklanders and those who had been tested.
"We would not have got in front of this cluster without them."
"There is no room for division when it comes to fighting Covid," Ardern said.
"We have made good progress. Unlike our first outbreak we are not dealing with multiple clusters."
How to wear a mask
Bloomfield showed his homemade mask to illustrate how people can make their own masks. It was made by the mother of one his son's friends.
"Homemade masks can be washed and reused."
Bandanas and scarfs can also be used, he said.
Ardern also had a mask made by someone in the parliamentary building, which had a "range of patterns".
Bloomfield gave a demonstration on how to properly fit his mask.
He quipped that it wasn't hard to fit it over his ears but he had issues with his glasses fogging up.
Mosque shooter sentencing
Asked about the Christchurch mosque shootings sentencing next week, Ardern said she couldn't say much to ease the difficulties for families attending. She hadn't decided whether to watch the sentencing.
Bloomfield said some people had been granted exemptions to travel out of Auckland to attend the sentencing, but none from managed isolation facilities.
Ardern said there were "very clearly issues that need to be dealt with and very quickly" when asked about the exodus of staff at Canterbury DHB.
Cabinet met today at 10am to review the current settings.
Speaking yesterday, Health Minister Chris Hipkins said ministers would consider the most up-to-date information from the recent "surge of testing" and contact tracing.
"There's not an exhaustive hard-and-fast set of rules here. It ultimately comes down to judgements."
New Zealand yesterday recorded five new cases of Covid-19, bringing the size of the cluster to 78. Another two cases remain under investigation.
