Following a Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that Auckland would remain at Alert Level 4 for at least another week, after a further 33 cases of community transmission of the pandemic disease were confirmed yesterday.
The rest of the country remains at Level 2, ahead of a further reassessment by Cabinet next Monday.
Ms Ardern said while it was encouraging that almost all the new cases were close contacts of known cases and hence already in isolation, the surging number of cases in Australia offered ample evidence of the danger that a single undetected case of the Delta variant of Covid-19 posed.
New South Wales reported 1257 locally acquired Covid-19 cases and seven deaths yesterday, while Victoria reported a record 473 community transmission cases.
Business South chief executive Mike Collins said local businesses were not surprised by the decision to stay at Alert Level 2 and given the case numbers in Auckland, it made sense.
Some of its members, particularly in hospitality, were hoping for a lift in the number of customers they could have in store.
Mr Collins said Auckland being in lockdown added extra pressure to the supply of products, which was already constrained before the lockdown.
Tourism and hospitality businesses across the lower South Island were hoping for a boost to business in the school holidays next month and it was hoped Aucklanders would be able to travel by then, he said.
Dunedin Mayor Aaron Hawkins said a change in alert levels had seemed highly unlikely, because of continued uncertainty around the outbreak.
He thanked Aucklanders for their hard work to contain the virus, "with two notable exceptions", referring to a couple who face prosecution after flying to Wanaka.
Queenstown Lakes Mayor Jim Boult said there was still a chance Aucklanders would be permitted to visit Queenstown during the next school holidays, due to start at the beginning of October.
Mr Boult said if Auckland moved to Level 3 next Tuesday evening and remained there for a fortnight, "that effectively takes us to the beginning of the school holidays".
Ms Ardern said she wanted health officials and clinicians to use the next week wisely, not only to ensure that the active Covid-19 clusters in Auckland were contained, but also to carry out as many tests as possible throughout the country to confirm that the disease had not spread further afield than the northern city.
Nationally, vaccination numbers passed 4.3 million doses yesterday. Of those, 2.8 million were first doses and 1.4 million people were fully vaccinated.
Ms Ardern said the Government’s strategy to "vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate" was the fastest and most effective way for the country to return to Level 1.
She said Cabinet had discussed what changes might be made to revise the previous Alert Level 1 guidelines to meet the challenge of the more transmissible Delta variant, but had shelved any decisions until next week. — Additional reporting Riley Kennedy, Tracey Roxburgh
