30 Sep 2021

Covid-19 briefing: Govt still has 'broad control' of Auckland outbreak - PM Jacinda Ardern

2:14 pm on 30 September 2021

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the government still has "broad control" of the Covid-19 Delta outbreak in Auckland.

Ardern and Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield have held today's latest government briefing.

Watch the update here:

There were 19 community cases reported today.

While yesterday's total of 45 new community cases in Auckland was the highest it had been in some weeks, just four remained unlinked, Dr Bloomfield said.

Ardern said there was broad control of the outbreak, and "control is key".

"We simply do not have enough people vaccinated in Auckland or in New Zealand to tolerate a widespread outbreak but maintaining control is not a given," she said.

"We still need the restrictions that we're using, I know they're incredibly hard and they will ease but for now they're doing a job for us that's why we need people to keep following them."

Dr Bloomfield said there are now two new sub-clusters in the city.

"One of which they're calling the Southeast Auckland household cluster - there are five households in that one - and then there's one just identified, the West Auckland cluster. It's those two sub-clusters that are really giving rise to the new cases at the moment.

"So of the other ones that were active only none of those have actually had new cases in the last few days."

She said it was highly likely the boundary around the Auckland region will remain, even if restrictions are eased. The government was giving full consideration to easing restrictions, but removing the regional boundary is not under consideration.

Cabinet is set to review the country's alert level settings on Monday.

"We are giving full consideration to easing [alert level restrictions], but there's a number of way we can consider that. But what is not in consideration is removing that regional boundary at this time."

Ardern said only 3 percent of cases in this outbreak were fully vaccinated, with 83 percent of eligible Aucklanders now having received the first dose of the vaccine.

About 80 percent of the eligible population nationwide has either had its first dose or has booked in for the first dose.

Nationally 92 percent of over 65s have had their first Covid vaccine and nearly 90 percent have either had or are booked in to have this second.

"It is possible to hit 90 and we need everyone to put that effort in," Ardern said.

"We can be world-leading in getting our population vaccinated."

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