Tomorrow is D-Day for a decision on New Zealand’s Covid-19 lockdown – and the Ministry of Health is releasing an update of testing results at about 1pm today.

Tomorrow Cabinet will meet to decide whether to change the current alert level settings of level 3 in Auckland and level 2 for the rest of the country.

Those settings are currently in place until 11.59pm on Wednesday.

Among the factors that will be considered are the number of new cases, whether they can be linked to the South Auckland cluster, and how the contact-tracing system has been performing.

Ministers will also consider the advice of Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

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Yesterday’s numbers

Yesterday there were six new cases, four linked to the cluster and two still being investigated, bringing the total number of cases in this outbreak to 95.

The cluster has 92 cases, while three cases are still under investigation. One of them is the Rydges maintenance worker who may have caught Covid-19 after pushing the same lift button shortly after it was used by a Covid-infected person who had returned from the USA.

With 16 cases in managed isolation and quarantine, the total number of active cases was 111.

Yesterday health officials were reaching out to the 16 people who travelled on the 22N bus, between the Symonds St overbridge and Avondale, on August 12.

Two people with Covid-19 were on the bus.

Nine of 11 people considered close contacts on the bus had been identified and were being contacted. The other two didn’t use registered AT HOP cards.

“Our advice is that anyone who knows that they took the same bus as the confirmed cases between 10.30am and 1.04pm on August 12 should self-isolate, call Healthline (0800 358 5453) for advice and get tested as soon as possible,” the Auckland public health unit said.

Five others who travelled on the bus are not considered at risk as they got off before the cases boarded.

Other bus trips that the two Covid-infected people took are still being investigated.