The two new community cases of Covid-19 have the same South African strain of the virus as the Northland woman infected at the Pullman Hotel, and initial results show the three cases are connected.
While health officials work to conduct extensive testing in light of the new cases, decisions around events over the Auckland Anniversary Day and Waitangi Day long weekends will be made in the coming days based on advice from the Ministry of Health.
The two new cases are an adult and a child, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed this morning, and they had twice tested negative for the virus before being released into the community. The infected pair had not moved far since returning to their home after being in managed isolation, but the Ministry of Health has still identified a list of locations of interest around Auckland's North Shore that the pair visited from January 17 to January 26.
Hipkins said that it was unlikely there would be a change in alert levels at this point "but everything is always under review". Auckland Mayor Phil Goff followed up by saying it would be "premature to go into lockdown now".
"It's the last resort. If we need to do it, we'd have to do it but nobody wants to do it and nobody sees that in being critical in the absence of evidence that there has been wider spread in the community by these cases," Goff said.
