Coronavirus: New Zealand has 185 confirmed new cases of COVID-19 in the community

New Zealand has 185 new cases of Covid-19 in the community, reports the Ministry of Health.

An additional death in Auckland has also been added to the national COVID-19 figures today. This person’s death is subject to a police investigation and the Ministry will not be commenting further on it, at this stage.

Of today's new cases, 152 are in Auckland, while eight are in Northland and 25 are in Waikato - taking the total number of cases in Waikato to 203 (76 of whom have recovered).

Today a total of 1,934 cases are now reported as having recovered from Covid-19.

That brings the total number of active cases in the community to 3,064 (the total number of cases in this outbreak is now 4,998).

There are still 36 cases in Northland (six of whom have recovered) and four active cases in Christchurch.

There are 84 people in hospital, including 10 patients in intensive care.

Auckland, Northland and parts of Waikato (Raglan, Te Kauwhata, Ngaruawahia, Hamilton city, Huntly, Te Kuiti, Waipa, Ōtorohanga, Te Awamutu, Karapiro and Cambridge) are currently at alert level 3.

Auckland and Waikato have seen an easing of restrictions and are now at level 3 step 2.

Norhland will move to alert level 2 at 11.59pm tonight.

The rest of the country is at alert level 2.

Previously, the Prime Minister revealed New Zealand will move into a new way of managing Covid-19 when District Health Boards have 90 per cent of their eligible populations vaccinated.

The traffic light system will use vaccine certificates to allow complying businesses to continue to operate at all times - and proposes to end nationwide lockdowns.

New Zealand has had 7,746 confirmed cases since the pandemic began last year and 33 deaths.