There are 24 new community cases of Covid-19 to report today, the Ministry of Health has revealed.
Director of public health, Dr Caroline McElnay said all of the new cases were in Auckland.
The total number of cases in the outbreak is now at 1050.
She said 688 cases have now recovered, including all 17 cases in Wellington. There are now 361 active cases all in Auckland.
Of today's new community cases, 21 of them have known links, and of those 19 are household contacts.
Twelve were already in MIQ when they were tested, while the other nine were isolating at home, she said.
"We do expect a number of further cases in the coming days as some of the new recent cases do come from large households."
But these contacts are already in isolation, she said.
An investigation into the three other unlinked cases were ongoing.
One of the new unlinked cases reported today is a man who was remanded into custody at Mount Eden Prison on Friday night, Dr McElnay said.
He is understood to have been in the Firth of Thames area before he was taken into custody, she said.
"This is within the Counties Manukau DHB area and is within the Alert Level 4 area, he was travelling with one other person who is now in isolation and is being tested today."
There are two locations of interest from this event so far.
Four police staff are now isolating following interaction with this case, she confirmed.
Corrections advised that only essential staff were on site, five corrections staff and six prisoners have been identified as contacts and were isolating, she said.
"This case, his travelling companion and his contacts have been helpful and cooperative."
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the protocols undertaken by corrections are "extraordinarily vigorous" which is what lead to the detection.
During Alert Levels 3 and 4 Corrections treat all new incoming prisoners the same as how new arrivals are treated when entering MIQ at our border, she said.
They are tested at Day 0, and have tests all the way through to Day 12 and staff wear full PPE.
Truck driver
Dr McElnay also gave an update on the truck driver who tested positive after travelling over the Auckland Level 4 border for work.
There are now 140 contacts of the truck driver, outside of his household, who were at locations of interested, of these 81 people have returned negative tests, she said.
Of yesterday's cases, all 20 have now been linked to existing cases, including one outstanding case which was previously reported as "unlinked".
There are 13 people in Auckland hospitals with Covid-19, four of these are in ICU.
Yesterday there were 53,386 doses of the Covid vaccine administered, of these, 28,946 were first doses and 24,440 were second doses.
In total there have been 3,078,338 first doses administered since the rollout began and 1,606,078 people have had both vaccinations.
Ardern said 78% of eligible Aucklanders have now had their first dose.
Just another 30,000 people would take this to 80%, she said.
