Saturday 18 September, 1pm
Today there are 20 new community cases, all in Auckland.
All but one of them are household contacts or known contacts of existing cases. One case is being investigated to try and establish a link to any known cases.
This brings the total community outbreak to 1,027.
625 of the 1,010 cases in Auckland have recovered, and 16 of the 17 cases in Wellington have recovered.
The Ministry of Health is urging anyone in Auckland with cold or flu symptoms, even if they are very mild, to get tested.
They are also asking people without symptoms who live in suburbs of interest (Mt Eden, Massey, Māngere, Favona, Papatoetoe, Ōtara, Manurewa) to get a test.
High levels of testing in Auckland is an “an essential part of our outbreak response to detect every community case and stop onwards transmission”.