The Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has recommended and cabinet has agreed to keep all of New Zealand at level 4 until 11:59 PM on Tuesday August 24, with a cabinet meeting on Monday to determine the next steps, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.

There are 11 new cases of COVID-19 in the community to report today and this brings the total number of community cases associated with the Auckland outbreak to 31.

Ashley Bloomfield told a media conference the international airline crew member has now been reclassified as a border-related case and this is not included in the community cases.

Of the 31 community cases, 19 are now confirmed to be linked to the Auckland outbreak and the other 12 are being investigated, but there is every sign that they are linked at the first cluster.

He said “of today’s cases three are in family bubbles with previously reported cases and two are in the same family bubble.

“Eight are in Auckland while three are in the Wellington region, so public health teams in Auckland and in Wellington are conducting interviews to establish how the cases were infected and to determine through the details of their movements and further information on this and any emerging locations of interest will be made available as it emerges.”

“In addition, there are two border-related cases in managed isolation.

The latest preliminary results from recent sequencing show the community cases all of those sequenced to date are linked with a series of cases associated with our initial case, case A.

“These community cases are linked back to the case in managed isolation who stayed in the Crowne Plaza. Furthermore, whole-genome sequencing has now also confirmed the three cases and the family bubble that was in the room next door to that original case in the Crowne Plaza are linked so as a result of this, post departure five-date day 5 testing has been arranged for those returnees who were in the Crowne Plaza and have left who were on the same floor and whose stay overlapped with the infectious period of that original case.

He said “separately the Air New Zealand crew member that I mentioned earlier on has also been linked to three other cases in a different managed isolation facility.