Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has vowed to leave "no stone unturned" in the hunt for the source of the Valentine's Day Covid-19 outbreak.
Ardern said officials were "making good progress" in the investigation but work was still under way and the current alert levels will remain in place.
Ardern and director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield are giving an update on the three Valentine's Day cases, all of which are within one family.
Reports from Auckland suggest the transition to alert level 3 has gone "reasonably well", says Ardern, with less people on public transport and out and about.
At 1.30pm today, 6861 workers received travel exemptions and more are being processed, the PM said. There is an average of 35 seconds wait time on the call line.
She confirmed the first batch of the Pfizer vaccine arrived in the country about 9.30am on a flight - the first batch is 60,000 doses or 30,000 courses.
She said vaccines would continue to arrive in small batches.
The doses will now undergo quality assurance testing and everything is still on track for frontline border workers to start being vaccinated from Saturday.
Ardern wanted to remind New Zealanders the Government had ordered enough for everyone.
"We are very pleased to have reached a milestone today."
The Government had already prepared a scenario that the vaccines would arrive from today.
"We are on track to start on Saturday," said Bloomfield.
"It's an encouraging start," said Bloomfield about the fact there had been no new community cases announced today - but the key would be the test results from the community and school which will be processed tomorrow.
The UK varient that the family have is "highly transmissible and a fast-moving chain" which requires fast action, said Ardern. It still has not been linked to a known case in MIQ.
Bloomfield said the days ahead would be crucial as the test results from the community surveillance in Auckland and Taranaki come through.
Serology testing has come back negative which confirms all three are active cases.
Testing and serology are happening on "Case B" - the mother - and there is "significant testing" happening at Papatoetoe High School.
There are 42 close contacts outside of the household, including some teachers and students - none have yet returned positive test results and the rest are still being processed.
Bloomfield said there had been a "good response" to testing in Auckland and Taranaki and repeated it was important only the "right people" were being tested.
The level changes will help stamp out any chains of transmission, said Bloomfield, and he thanked Kiwis and businesses for adhering to them.
Preparation for the vaccine roll-out is underway, including dry runs and establishing vaccination sites.
A number of vaccinators have completed the two-hour training module to administer the Pfizer vaccine.
Bloomfield reminded Kiwis the Pfizer vaccine was two doses about three weeks apart and it was important to get both.
"Covid-19 can feel like a roller-coaster that you haven't actually bought a ticket for," said Bloomfield.
There were no new confirmed cases in the community at 1pm today.
At the weekend, after the three people tested positive for Covid-19, Auckland was plunged back into alert level 3 and the rest of the country moved to alert level 2.
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Close contacts
The Ministry said contact tracing had identified 10 close contacts outside the household. Six of these close contacts have returned a negative test and four results are pending.
Investigations would continue today into the three community cases, including further interviews. As a result the number of locations of interest, close and casual plus contacts may change.
The priority was for close contacts and casual plus contacts to be tested so we can understand any risk in the community.
There were a number of locations of interest for people who may be 'Casual Plus Contacts' or 'Casual Contacts' of COVID-19 cases in the community.
Genomic sequencing
The Ministry said in this afternoon's update the results of genomic sequencing for the first two Auckland February cases had confirmed the Covid-19 variant B1.1.7, first detected in the UK.
ESR was now conducting a scan of the international genome database to see if there is a match.
The Ministry said the result reinforced the decision to take swift and robust action around the latest cases to detect and stamp out the possibility of any further transmission.
An intensive source investigation around the latest cases continues, along with public health actions and alert level changes outlined yesterday, are designed to break any potential chains of transmission.
Serology testing for the three positive cases and a close household contact was also now underway.
The three cases remain in quarantine and one household contact, who has tested negative, is in isolation.
Testing being ramped up
Yesterday a mother, father and daughter tested positive for the highly infectious UK variant of Covid-19, spurring Auckland into alert level 3 lockdown and the rest of the country into alert level 2 lockdown for 72 hours.
Officials are hoping to rapidly trace and test people at the woman's workplace - where she handles laundry from international flights - to find the chain of transmission.
They are also ramping up community testing and urging people who were at locations of interest visited by the family to get tested to check for wider community transmission.
The first set of results from the mass testing will be available in the statement.
Auckland moved to level 3 for at least three days at 11.59 last night, with employees asked to work from home, students urged to stay away from school and police setting up checkpoints at eight locations at the region's border overnight.
Police officers are checking all vehicles arriving and leaving Auckland to ensure there is no non-essential travel. Alert level 2 is less restrictive. (The full list of rules are detailed below).
Ardern told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking today that the link to the British variant had led officials to think the virus might have come through airport transit or it had stemmed from an international airline crew member.
"The other possibility is that it's international airline crew... they also do the laundry of a couple of international airline crew. And so, that is also one of the possibilities."
It was still possible - but unlikely - the new cases had come from an MIQ case which hadn't been sequenced, said Ardern.
