Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the hard boundary around Auckland was protecting parts of the country that were below the target and which were at higher risk if the virus arrived via someone who'd been in Auckland.
"Those borders won't exist forever, but they're doing a job for us now while the rest of the country is being vaccinated, so we'll keep using it for now," she told ZM.
"If anyone wants to make sure they are able to leave over the summer, that's another reason to get vaccinated."
The outbreak is showing no signs of abating, and Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says "pretty much everywhere" in Auckland is a suburb of interest.
Meanwhile, a person with Covid-19 was found dead while isolating at an Auckland address yesterday.
The Ministry of Health (MoH) made the announcement at 8pm on Wednesday.
The person was found by a family member visiting them at a Manukau address.
The ministry said the cause of death was unknown and "may have been Covid-19 or some other cause".
Director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the death was "tragic news".
"I really feel for this family and my condolences to them".
Bloomfield told TVNZ he had no further information to offer on the death but health officials would be working with police.
The death has been referred to the coroner.
Auckland travel
The Auckland boundary will not be needed once every District Health Board has hit the 90 percent target, which is when the new traffic light system kicks in.
Until then, travel for even fully vaccinated Aucklanders with a negative test is not guaranteed unless a system can be set up to accommodate 30,000 vehicles leaving the city.
Unvaccinated Aucklanders, however, won't be allowed to leave the city until the 90 percent targets are met.
Areas such as Northland, Tairāwhiti and the West Coast DHBs are particularly lagging at the moment, and are not expected to hit 90 percent until the start of next year - if at all.
Hipkins also told Checkpoint yesterday the Government was considering the option that Aucklanders have an allocated time slot to leave the region over the summer holidays.
The measure would reduce the risk of queues of traffic at the boundary checkpoints, as vaccination certificates are checked.
National Party leader Judith Collins yesterday called Ardern "Jacinda the Grinch" over the Auckland situation.
"The PM should be explicitly clear on whether Aucklanders will be free to travel this summer. People are planning their summers now. Families want to know if they will see each other at Christmas.
Act leader David Seymour said Ardern was being "divisive and impractical".
"The overwhelming majority support vaccination, but there's growing discomfort about the Government setting people against each other," he said.
Ardern has given herself some breathing room, with Cabinet reviewing each DHB's progress to the 90 percent target on November 29.
Cabinet will look at moving Auckland into the Red setting in the traffic light system, given that its three DHBs are likely to be at or close to 90 percent by then. The need for the hard boundary will also likely be reviewed.
The South Island may also be moved into the new system, even though the West Coast DHB is unlikely to be close to 90 percent.
Yesterday Hipkins suggested that the requirement for 90 percent across the board was also flexible.
"We've made a commitment not to leave people behind," he said.
"That doesn't mean that if people choose to be left behind that we're going to hold everybody else up because of the choice that they make."
Ardern said she still wanted fully vaccinated Aucklanders to be able to leave the city for Christmas, but there were practical challenges.
"How do you do that when you have up to 30,000 cars moving at a time?
"It's not actually about the overall vaccination status of the rest of the country - that's not what it's dependent on. It's on our ability to set up a system that allows people to move safely."
Ardern has been criticised as divisive for setting out different freedoms for the vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated, though she has defended them as necessary for safety as well as an incentive to get vaccinated.
Her attempts to boost vaccination efforts in Whanganui yesterday were thwarted when 250 protesters showed up at a vaccination clinic.
She decided not to visit, given that it could block access for people trying to get vaccinated. She then abandoned her visit to another clinic in Hunterville.
This followed two individuals interrupting Ardern's visit to Northland on Tuesday.
She said she didn't plan to stop visiting communities where vaccination levels were low, where she expected to be met with strong views.
Whanganui has only 81 per cent of its eligible population with one dose, and 69 per cent with two.
There haven't been any cases in Christchurch since the four cases from two households last week, and director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield said those now appeared to be contained.
There were no new cases in Northland, though Hipkins urged those in the Far North to continue to get tested and vaccinated.
