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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield, gave an update on Delta in the community:

• Northland has been confirmed to be moving to level 3 
• There are 49 cases in the community today, bringing the outbreak to 725 
• 709 of those are in Auckland, and 16 in Wellington. 
• 4 additional cases were also reported in MIQ 
• 85 per cent of yesterday's causes were contacts of known cases 
• 42 cases are now in hospital, 6 in ICU or high dependency units 
• 96% of the contacts in Northland had returned tests - all negative 
• Bloomfield said there were just over 6000 swabs taken yesterday. "We need to have higher levels of testing across Tamaki Makaurau to have confidence we have the outbreak under control." He said anyone with symptoms, or who went to a location of interest or was a contact needed to have tests to ensure Auckland is at level 4 for the shortest time 
• Bloomfield also said genomic testing had now made them confident that there was only case of Delta that had made it into the community. All of the other cases so far linked back to that one. 
• No unexpected results in waste water testing. All testing from Northland had returned negative results. 
• On the Springhill prison case, Bloomfield said negative results had since been returned from the prison officer and it was now under investigation. 
• A Mid Central case has since been determined to be an historic case 
• Bloomfield’s message to essential workers crossing the border is to get test in the next couple of days even if they don’t have symptoms. He will have more on that in the coming days 
• He said there were now 384 applications for personal travel across the borders. About 95 per cent had been declined. He acknowledged that was distressing for some. 
• Bloomfield said nearly 200,000 new bookings were made for vaccinations yesterday after it opened to those aged 12 plus 
• Ardern said it was not unusual for case numbers to move around, but there were positive trends in the numbers. 
• She said there were fewer cases who had been infectious in the community - only seven of today's cases had been infectious. The most common event was visiting a supermarket or dairy - and overall there were nine visits 
• Ardern says the plan is working and has a message for close contacts – saying they must stay at home or they risk prolonging the lockdown 
• Ardern emphasised the rules for level 3 were tighter this time - especially the use of masks 
• She also said there had been multiple reports of abuse of bus drivers and other transports. "There is never an excuse to lash out at our essential workers" 
• There will be $49 million in additional funding to assist Whanau Ora and Pasifika providers, and to help the vaccinations rollout 
• Minister Peeni Henare said Whanau Ora had moved quickly to provide the support needed and $23m of the $49m would go to Whanau Ora 
• The providers would help with food, goods and other essentials, as well as the health needs of their communities