The Ministry of Health has confirmed 36 new cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand as at 8am today.

The total number of cases in New Zealand now sits at 102, with more than 7400 tests having been carried out to date.

Of today's new cases more than half are directly linked to overseas travel. Most of the remaining cases are close contacts of a previously confirmed case or were associated with an event where there have been confirmed cases, such at the New Zealand Hereford Conference in Queenstown earlier this month. However, across all cases there remain two where it is unclear where the infection came from and these are being treated as community transmission.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said Cabinet had been meeting to discuss New Zealand's response to latest developments and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was due to make a statement within the hour.

"The Prime Minister will update the country later on the alert level, which is a result of and informed by those cases of community transmission," he said.

Contract tracing for all cases is ongoing.

"We have expected, and indeed want to find any cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand. We have expected them because we have had people returning from a range of places around the world that have higher rates of COVID-19. And the important thing, of course, is that we find these cases, we isolate them, we identify close contacts and we isolate those people too," Dr Bloomfield said.