There are 41 new cases of COVID-19 in the New Zealand community to confirm today. This brings the total number of cases in the community outbreak to 148.

Of these 41 new cases, 19 are female and 22 are male. 31 of these are Pacific peoples, three are Asian and seven are European.

The total number of community cases in Auckland is now 137 and 11 in Wellington.

All of the cases have or are being transferred safely to a managed isolation facility, under strict infection prevention and control procedures, including the use of full PPE.

As previously indicated, it's not unexpected to see a rise in daily case numbers at this stage. At its peak last year, New Zealand had a daily total of 89 new cases.

There are currently nine hospitalisations, of which eight are associated with the current outbreak. Seven are related to community transmission and one is border-related.

Of the 148 cases in the cluster, 89 are already epidemiologically linked to other community cases identified in the outbreak. Investigations are continuing to determine whether and how the remaining 59 cases are linked to the outbreak. There are currently six epidemiologically-linked subclusters identified within this outbreak. The two largest clusters are the Birkdale Social Network cluster associated with Case A with approximately 23 confirmed cases, and a cluster associated with the AOG church in Mangere with approximately 58 cases.

'We will continue to release this information and new locations of interest as it becomes available,” says a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

There is one new case in recent returnees in a managed isolation facility. The person arrived on August 17, with full travel history still to be confirmed, and tested positive on Day 6 during routine testing. They are in managed isolation in Auckland.

The total number of active cases being managed in New Zealand is currently 183.

Since January 1 2021, there have been 123 historical cases, out of a total of 922 cases.

The total number of confirmed NZ cases since the start of the pandemic is 2740.

Testing
Yesterday, 35,376 tests were processed across New Zealand.

'Testing nationwide remains a priority in our assessment of spread and in determining the edges of the outbreak,” says a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

Yesterday, testing centres in Auckland had yet another busy day with more than 26,500 swabs taken across Tâmaki Makaurau, with around 9,000 at community testing centres and a further 17,500 at general practice and urgent care clinics

There are 22 community testing centres across Auckland today – including a new walk-in testing centre which opened today at Victoria Park carpark in Auckland CBD.

In Wellington, 2,533 tests were processed yesterday – and 11 community testing centres are open again today.

All DHBs are ensuring there is good access to testing across the regions.

For up-to-date information on all testing locations, please visit Healthpoint.co.nz.

The total number of COVID-19 tests processed by laboratories to date is 2,763,229.

The seven-day rolling average is 28,405.

Wastewater testing
There are no positive wastewater testing results in the most recent samples collected outside the Auckland and Wellington regions.

In Auckland, COVID-19 was detected in samples collected on Saturday August 21 2021 from seven sites including North Shore - Rosedale, Albany.

In the Wellington region, the virus was detected in a sample collected on August 22 from Moa Point, Wellington and in the same site in the previous two days. There were no other detections in Wellington or in the wider region on August 22 and 23 August.

Contact tracing
Public health staff across New Zealand continue to contact trace, with a focus on higher risk locations.

The number of contacts has increased significantly.

'This is something we expected as we identify more cases and test in large numbers,” says a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

As of 9am today, 15,741 individual contacts have been identified and over half have had a negative a test – and this number will increase throughout the day, as records are fully processed. The majority of these contacts are close contacts.

Locations of interest
'We are continuing to add locations of interest as interviews from confirmed cases are completed by public health staff,” says a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

There are now more than 400 locations of interest listed on the Ministry's website.

Of these, 12 locations of interest are in Wellington, a few are scattered across the North Island and the rest are located in Auckland. There are also two flights between Auckland Wellington.

'We will continue to update this information regularly.”

The Ministry's website also includes advice on what to do if you were at any of these locations at the time when you could potentially have been exposed. Alerts are being sent to people who scanned in using the COVID-19 Tracer App at locations during the relevant times.

If you were at a location of interest at the specified time, please self-isolate and call Healthline on 0800 358 5453 for advice on testing.

COVID-19 vaccine update
More than 2.85 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to date.

Of these, 1.82 million are first doses and more than 1.02 million are second doses.

More than 160,000 Mâori have received their first vaccination. More than 94,000 have also had their second vaccinations.

More than 106,000 doses have been administered to Pacific peoples and more than 64,000 have also received their second doses.

Yesterday 44,250 first doses were given, and 19,082 second doses were given, bringing yesterday's total doses administered to 63,333. This is the biggest daily total to date.

NZ COVID Tracer
NZ COVID Tracer now has 3,050,066 registered users.

Poster scans have reached 328,683,310 and users have created 14,029,326 manual diary entries.

There have been 578,588 scans in the 24 hours to midday yesterday.

New Zealand is staying in alert level 4 lockdown until at least midnight on Friday, and Auckland until at least midnight on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the news at a post-Cabinet meeting media briefing on Monday afternoon.

The nationwide lockdown will be assessed on Friday afternoon whilst Auckland's longer lockdown will be considered in a review on Monday.

All of New Zealand will remain at Alert Level 4 until at least midnight on Friday, August 27 with Auckland staying in longer, until midnight on Tuesday, August 31.