Auckland is at greater risk from the coronavirus flare-up than the rest of the country, a leading Covid-19 data modeller says.
There are 102 people who still have the virus, 52 of them in Auckland, but nine regions look to have wiped it out for now.
Te Pūnaha Matatini Covid-data modelling expert Shaun Hendy said Auckland remained a riskier prospect than other parts of the country - and not just because of its numbers.
"If you are living in a bigger city you are going to tend to have more contacts through your day - perhaps because you're taking public transport, perhaps because you're working in a big factory with a lot of other people," he said.
GP and Auckland medical school associate professor Matire Harwood said the areas of the city with higher rates of poverty or homelessness, and a lot of underlying health conditions, were at particular risk.
"People living in crowded homes, not having the opportunity for physical distancing from someone who might have the infection, it could really get away and we would see the exponential growth we've seen internationally," she said.
As Cabinet makes its decision about whether to go to level 2, there are nine regions where no one is known to have the disease - Bay of Plenty, Hutt Valley, Lakes (Taupō and Rotorua), Mid Central (Manawatū), Tairāwhiti (Gisborne and East Coast), Taranaki, Wairarapa, West Coast and Whanganui.
There is just one active case in the whole of greater Wellington.
Otago and Southland have six, after once having 208 - more cases than any other health board area. They've had no new cases for three weeks.
Epidemiologist Dr Ayesha Verrall said there was no room for complacency in regions who looked to have the disease under control.
The main ongoing risk would be international travel, she said.
"Even with good quarantine, there is a risk of transmission from quarantined people. It is a small risk but we still need to manage it carefully," she said
And Dr Hendy said Covid-19 could still be being silently transmitted in the country.
"There have still been parts of the economy that have been running, people have still been in contact. Just the statistics of the way this disease works means it's still possible there are cases we haven't detected," he said.
With new case numbers now small, it was harder to know what to read into them, he said.
"So we're in a funny position with the modelling in that we are less certain now, in a way, than we were a few weeks ago when we could really see how level four was working," he said.