Checkpoint for Monday 23 August 2021

4:27 PM."Delta has a head start on us" - the Prime Minister's words on Monday afternoon before she announced how Aotearoa will catch up.

The whole of the country will remain in Alert Level 4 lockdown until… Read more Video, Audio

4:41 PM.The whole country will remain in Covid-19 Level 4 lockdown until the end of the week.

That includes the South Island, despite the fact there have been no cases detected yet.

Bruce Smith is the… Read more Video, Audio

4:48 PM.Secondary school students facing high stakes assessments will be in lockdown until at least Friday night, and until the end of the month for Aucklanders.

The Ministry of Education says schools… Read more Video, Audio

4:55 PM.When news of the lockdown broke, people raced out and got broccoli.

The trouble is, it's getting harder for vegetable growers to handle the demands of keeping supermarkets stocked.

Sally Murphy… Read more Audio

5:08 PM.All of New Zealand will remain at Alert Level 4 lockdown for another four days, until 11:59pm this Friday.

The Auckland region, however, will remain in lockdown until 11:59pm next Tuesday August 31.

5:10 PM.Ninety-nine of the 107 cases in this Delta cluster are in Auckland. Just eight are in the capital.

So far no other cities or towns have returned positives for the more transmissible strain.

And the… Read more Video, Audio

5:21 PM.Political editor Jane Patterson is at Parliament where the House meeting has been suspended for a week.

Select committees are continuing virtually.

RNZ political editor Jane Patterson has the… Read more Video, Audio

5:27 PM.Seven Auckland Countdown supermarkets have been forced to close - mostly due to staff shortages.

That's because a thousand company employees in Auckland and Wellington are isolating because their… Read more Video, Audio

5:35 PM.News from the business sector, including a market report. Audio

5:40 PM.Scan, scan, scan. Or if you can't do that, it's sign in with pen and paper.

New rules are coming into force making it mandatory to record your visit at most busy places or events.

The change will… Read more Video, Audio

5:44 PM.Health authorities have been tracking down six people who were in an open walkway while the person with the earliest identified case of the Delta variant was in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza Hotel MIQ… Read more Video, Audio

5:49 PM.The Coromandel community is cautiously optimistic it may have dodged a Covid-19 bullet - with widespread testing so far revealing no sign of the virus.

About 60 percent of the local population is… Read more Audio

5:52 PM.At least 13,000 contacts and more than 300 locations of interest - the tentacles of the latest Covid-19 outbreak are continuing to spread right across Auckland, and beyond.

Thirty-five new cases were… Read more Audio

5:56 PM.A South Island festival organiser says they're scrambling to work out how to enforce mandatory scanning, if they're able to go ahead.

Tess Brunton has more. Read more Audio

6:10 PM.Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says all possibilities on the table for the South Island if no cases are found by Friday.

"I wouldn't rule anything in or out, we'll make those decisions… Read more Video, Audio

6:18 PM.What can we expect through this Covid-19 cluster, and when the cluster is brought under control?

According to one expert, Delta has changed the land so much the relative freedoms of the last 18… Read more Video, Audio