There are 43 cases in the community today after confirmation that the Northland traveller picked up by police last night has tested positive.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has also announced a televised 'vaxathon' this Saturday, which she hopes will break daily records for Kiwis getting the jab.
Ardern said there was capacity to do 100,000 vaccinations in a day and hoped to reach it on 'Super Saturday'
Director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield said 40 of today's cases are in Auckland and three are in Waikato.
Nineteen of today's cases are still unlinked but interviews are outstanding, according to Bloomfield.
Fourteen of yesterday's 35 cases are still unlinked.
One person of the 34 people in hospital requires a ventilator, he said.
Of the 158 people in hospital since the start of the Delta outbreak, only three people were fully vaccinated.
The Fijian UN worker who was transported here and underwent 76 days in NZ care has recovered.
Bloomfield confirmed the travelling companion of the Northland case tested positive. Public health staff are working closely with both cases and making progress, he said.
The female traveller was with another woman - who tested positive last week - as they drove from Auckland to Northland and back under false pretences.
They have been refusing to tell public health staffers where they went and who they were with, which is key information needed by contact tracers trying to stamp out the spread of Covid.
Police apprehended the woman, who was symptomatic, in a New Lynn house at 9.55pm yesterday, and took her to the Jet Park quarantine facility in South Auckland.
Her test result was expedited and came back positive this morning. The Ministry of Health said that 18 contacts have been identified for the woman who tested positive last week, 17 of whom have been tested.
Of the 18 contacts, nine are in Northland, seven are in Auckland, one is in Wellington, and one is still to be determined.
Ardern wasn't aware the two travellers had done so to attend tangi.
She said they went through the MBIE process to get across the border with documentation.
On the original exemption, there were four people for whom the exemption was asked for. Only two of those people crossed the boundary and they were the two travellers, Bloomfield said.
Ardern said there was constant work to see whether the exemption process could be improved.
One of the contacts is in Wellington and all those contacts have returned negative test apart from the second female traveller.
Asked whether she was confident there were no further contacts of these cases, Ardern said they had relied heavily on police on where the two individuals had been.
They had been advised that information was being received through interviews with the second traveller.
Ardern said it was "extraordinary" to have received complete silence from the first Covid positive traveller but the second traveller was reportedly being more helpful.
On Northland locations of interest, Bloomfield said the police have been able to assemble an idea of where the positive cases had been. He wasn't clear whether the cases had been to Paihia.
Bloomfield didn't have the information about the two women's vaccination status.
Super Saturday
Ardern announced a "blast from the past", between 12-8pm on various TV channels, there will be a 'vaxathon'.
It will include real-time data on how regions are going, prizes, information from experts and competition between towns and regions
Ardern said this Saturday would be about making us one of the most vaccinated countries in the world
Eighty-two percent have had their first dose, while 58 percent have had a second dose
In Auckland, 87 percent have had their first dose and 63 percent their second dose.
There were 69,118 vaccines administered yesterday, 15,107 first doses and 54,011 second doses.
Ardern said these were good figures and put us ahead of the US and Germany but they weren't high enough for us to ease restrictions
This Saturday multiple providers open for longer hours to enable more jabs to be administered
Ardern thanked businesses which had come forward to help out.
She said the country had the ability to administer more than 100,000 on one day, the previous record was about 93,000 which was in August.
"Those are the records that we should try and beat this week."
"I believe we can be world-leading on vaccines too."
Meanwhile, the latest locations of interest include an Auckland laundromat and a central city high-rise apartment complex are today's new locations of interest.
Vaccine mandates
Asked about Māori teachers leaving the industry because of the vaccination mandate, Ardern hoped they would reconsider as she didn't want to lose them from the workforce.
The decision made by Cabinet on vaccination mandate covered a wide range of healthcare workers.
Bloomfield suspected there would be very high uptake across healthcare and teaching workforces.
On the mandate for businesses, Ardern said work was being done to explore whether a vaccination certificate would be suitable.
Employers were also carrying out health and safety analyses as to whether vaccination was required. Ardern said there was not an expectation for any more legislative change for mandating vaccination.
Bloomfield said exemptions to the mandate were those who had a medical exemption and estimated it would be fewer than 100 people.
Beyond that, there was an expectation others would be vaccinated.
Other exemptions would be investigated.
On mask exemption, Ardern thought people were required to bring proof of exemption. However, police and the ministry of health have previously said the exemption is not required to enter a store without a mask.
