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Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield will provide a COVID-19 update at 1pm today, he will be joined by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who will give an update on today’s Cabinet meeting .

There were five new cases of COVID-19 reported yesterday with all of them linked to the Auckland community outbreak.

Four of the cases are Auckland based and one is linked to the two cases in Tokoroa and is receiving treatment in Waikato Hospital.

As of yesterday there are six people in hospital. One in Auckland City, four in Middlemore and one in Waikato Hospital.

“One person in Middlemore Hospital is in ICU and is in stable condition,” says Ashley

There are 101 active cases and 1304 confirmed cases.

Ashley says of the 80 cases in Auckland, 78 are linked to the cluster with two under investigation – one being the Rydges Hotel maintenance worker and one being a case announced yesterday that was thought to be linked to the cluster but has been reclassified as under investigation because no clear link has been established to the cluster yet.

That person whose case was reclassified today was at St Lukes Mall on the morning of 12 August.

Anyone visiting St Lukes at that time should be alert to symptoms and contact health professionals if feeling sick, says Ashley.

Ashley says a new “strong line of investigation” was being looked at after it was discovered the maintenance worker used the same lift as the woman he is believed to have contracted the virus from, shortly after she had been there.

The nurses who attended the hotel have all returned negative tests so it was unlikely to have been a link, says Ashley.

Cabinet ministers have met this morning to review the COVID-19 lockdown settings, but are not expected to make a definitive decision on whether to relax them.

One week ago, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed Auckland would stay at alert level 3 and the rest of the country at level 2 until at least the end of Wednesday, August 26.

At the time, she described the move as a “short but precautionary hold” which Cabinet would review on August 21.

Speaking yesterday, Health Minister Chris Hipkins said ministers would consider the most up-to-date information from the recent “surge of testing” and contact tracing.

“There’s not an exhaustive hard-and-fast set of rules here. It ultimately comes down to judgements.”

Additional reporting RNZ.