Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins and Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield provided an update on Covid-19 in the community. 

Today’s Update: 

• 23 new cases of Covid-19 in the community, all in Auckland. Only 1 case is yet to be linked to the current outbreak. There have been 1108 cases in the outbreak with 831 now recovered.  
• Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the new cases included six within one household. 
• He also said one-quarter of the residents in Clover Park had now been tested which was pleasing as that had been a suburb of interest. 
• Bloomfield says Upper Hauraki is now at level 3 with Auckland. He said the move to level 3 was made possible because of the high level of testing and great compliance with restrictions.  
• Those who need to move into Auckland to look after an individual could now apply for an exemption 
• Bloomfield said the WHO continued to warn about the information pandemic.  A glut of information including much that was incorrect. He encouraged people in positions of responsibility to point people to responsible and accurate information sources. 
• Chris Hipkins says 80% of eligible Aucklanders are now vaccinated. 
• 53,000 vaccine doses were given out yesterday. 
• Covid Minister Chris Hipkins said 75 per cent of the district health boards about 80,000 staff had now had two doses of the vaccine. 
• But despite the good results, Hipkins said more work needed to be done to get the numbers higher. 
• He said health teams were now consulting on potentially requiring mandatory vaccinations for some healthcare workers in the future.  
• The next MIQ release will be on Tuesday 28th September at 6pm NZT. These rooms will be for October, November and December.  
• Hipkins said Auckland students would be given extra support and credit around their secondary school results this year in recognition of their disrupted year that they are experiencing. He said students had been through a lot with the disruptions broadly similar to what happened last year.