A Covid-19 expert says Waikato's latest outbreak may not be as bad as Auckland's.

Parts of the Waikato region will move to Alert Level 3 at 11:59 tonight.

Auckland went to Alert Level Four with one case. 

Auckland University Covid-19 modeller Shaun Hendy says the government might have suspicions the two cases are linked to the Auckland outbreak.

He told the Weekend Collective there may be another cause for optimism.

“Our vaccination programme is a long way along now, it’s still got a ways to go, but actually, the vaccination programme will actually be cutting spread.”

However, with 33 cases today and 19 unlinked cases from the weekend, he thinks it's a negative trend.

"We're gonna see number continue to increase, and really, what's going to get us out of this situation is our vaccine programme."

LISTEN ABOVE