Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield are speaking to media after Cabinet decisions about alert levels in Auckland.

Watch live from about 4pm:

From midnight tomorrow, Tāmaki Makaurau will remain in Alert Level 3 but Aucklanders will have some restrictions eased.

The prime minister has set out a three-stage roadmap to easing restrictions and has outlined what will change from 11.59pm tomorrow.

Cabinet has agreed the rest of New Zealand will remain at Alert Level 2 - with the only change being the 100 person limit in hospitality venues removed.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says right at the beginning the government described Delta as a game-changer, "and it has proven to be so. It has been more infectious and more persistent ... what we have called a long tail feels more like a tentacle that has been incredibly hard to shake".

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She says restrictions have prevented what could have otherwise been exponential growth in the virus over many weeks.

She says it was the right choice, and the only choice at the time because of the vaccination levels - 42 percent of Aucklanders with one dose and 25 percent fully vaccinated.

In the seven weeks since, those numbers have risen to 84 percent and 52 percent, she says.

"Modelling is also now telling us that while we're still seeing cases, it's now 50 percent less than what we could've seen without vaccinations."

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She says the vaccinations mean in future we will not need so many restrictions, but "we're not there yet".

Cabinet has been asking, she says, how to make things a bit easier, and together with the public health team has designed a road map.

For this outbreak, it's clear that long periods of heavy restrictions has not got us to zero cases "but that is okay. Elimination was important because we didn't have vaccines, now we do".

She says we need to keep using the tools we have, including vaccination, testing, tracing, isolation, and controlling any outbreak now and into the future.

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"This is a change in approach we were always going to make over time, but the Delta outbreak has accelerated that transition. Vaccines, will support it."

"The science tells us Covid finds it hard to spread outdoors ... children can have a play date in a park, friends can meet outside for a walk, a picnic or a beer."

She says the 'outdoor' part may not sound relevant but it is in fact the most relevant part of all. "Keep it outside".

Ardern says the public health team believe that with the right precautions in place, the risk posed by reopening ECE is low. This includes limits of 10 within a bubble in ECE and strict infection control.

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Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says as well as the 29 new cases today, there are three other household cases linked to the Raglan case who will be included in tomorrow's number as they were entered into the system after 9am.

Seven of today's cases remain unlinked, and nine of yesterday's new cases remain unlinked.

He says an additional 25-30 more cases are expected from household and other close contacts.

Ardern told RNZ this morning Cabinet could consider other options than a level reduction, and has previously signalled a staggered reduction in restrictions, and continued use of a regional border.

More to come...

Republished by Arrangement