Focus Live: Roundtable with Cheree Kinnear, Frankie Mahoney and Liam Dann as Auckland bars re-open

After more than 100 days in lockdown, Aucklanders can finally hit their local bar again.

Join Focus reporter Cheree Kinnear, Ninety Nine Reasons founder and event director Frankie Mahoney and NZ Herald business editor Liam Dann live at 5pm from Auckland's Longroom in Ponsonby to celebrate the re-opening of hospitality and to discuss all things business in a Covid world.

Watch the live stream here at 5pm or on the Herald's Facebook or Youtube.

It was a particularly vibrant night in Auckland city last night when a number of bars re-welcomed customers at the stroke of midnight.

Headquarters bar owner Leo Molloy welcomed around 50 to 80 people into the bar within the first 40 minutes of opening.

About 350 people had booked in for lunch and he expected a further 300 people as walk-ins.

Britomart bistro Ortolana duty manager Ella Xue said she was ecstatic to be back in business this morning.

"I'm actually very excited. Last night I was hoping today was going to be a smash day."

About 30 people had been through by 8am, all with their vaccine passes.

All customers' passes were scanned upon entry and no one had expressed any frustration with the process so far, she said.

Today's cases

There are 92 new Covid community cases on day one of the nation's move to the new traffic light system.

The last day New Zealand recorded under 100 community cases was October 28, with 89 cases.

Of today's cases, 80 are in Auckland, two in Waikato, one in Northland, five in the Bay of Plenty, one in Lakes DHB, one in Nelson-Marlborough and two in Taranaki.

There are now 936 people with Covid in isolation in their homes.

There has been a decrease in hospitalisations since yesterday. There are now 79 people in hospital, including nine in intensive care.

There has also been a new wastewater detection in Gisborne, director of Public Health Caroline McElnay said at today's 1pm media briefing.