Pubs, cafes and gyms are back in Auckland - and so are locations of interest

Aucklanders today are finally able to have a beer at the pub with friends, work up a sweat in a gym or burst their bubbles and visit whānau inside their homes.

After more than 100 days of lockdown, the City of Sails moves into a new phase of the pandemic with the Government's traffic light system.

Auckland is presently in red - which allows hospitality businesses to open, catering up to 100 people provided vaccine certificates are used.

With the new freedom, the city is also likely to see the return of locations of interest.

"As Auckland moves to red on Friday, we expect the number of locations of interest published to increase," director general of health Ashley Bloomfield said this week.

"We will not always publish low-risk locations of interest for regions that are red under the Covid-19 Protection Framework."

"High-risk locations of interest are published for all regions," the ministry said.

The latest locations of interest outside of Auckland include the Blagdon Hot Bakery in New Plymouth, Countdown Stoke Nelson, Thirsty Liquor in Otorohonga and BP Connect on Russley Rd in Christchurch.

In October the Ministry of Health scaled back its publishing of Auckland locations of interest where the risk of exposure was low. This decision was based on ministry analysis indicating no positive cases have occurred from these locations, such as supermarkets and drive-throughs at restaurants.

Although the ministry said at the time said officials were working on "heat maps" that would paint a picture of Covid hotspots, these have yet to materialise.

A source from inside the ministry told the Herald last month he understood Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) has stopped sending them locations of interest within the Super City, saying it only made sense at the start of the outbreak.

Over that time, it is unclear what the Covid QR code scanning data in Auckland was now being used for and whether work was still been done internally within ARPHS.

Last month, health officials confirmed the contact tracers were scaling back on reporting locations of interest within Auckland.

Public health director Dr Caroline McElnay said on October 29 their approach had "shifted" due to the high number of cases in the region.

Contact tracers would now focus on "high-risk events", she said.

"We will continue to publish higher-risk, close-contact exposure events in public spaces when they occur, such as gyms and indoor recreation centres," McElnay said at the time.

Supermarkets and drive-throughs were no longer being listed as locations of interest.

At the time McElnay said this was because the public risk posed by being at those locations with confirmed cases was "very, very low" due to restrictions around distancing and masking.