There are 62 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 210.

Of these 62 new cases, 36 are female and 26 are male. Forty of these are Pacific peoples, three are Māori, seven are Asian, five are European, and as yet, the ethnicity is unknown of seven.

The total number of community cases in Auckland is now 198 and 12 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 six epidemiologically-linked subclusters identified within this outbreak. The two largest clusters are the Birkdale Social Network cluster associated with Case A with approximately 36 confirmed cases, and a cluster associated with the AOG church in Mangere with approximately 105 confirmed cases.

There is one new case in a recent returnee in a managed isolation facility. The new case arrived on August 11 from India via United Arab Emirates, and tested positive on Day 12 during routine testing. They are in managed isolation in Auckland.

A case previously reported on July 2 2021 has now been deemed historical.

The total number of active cases being managed in New Zealand is currently 246.

Since January 1 2021, there have been 124 historical cases, out of a total of 985 cases.

The total number of confirmed NZ cases since the start of the pandemic is 2803.

Middlemore healthcare worker
As reported yesterday, a positive test result for a Middlemore Emergency Department staff member has been returned. The case is currently classified as under investigation and is not included in today's tally.

As a precaution the staff member has been stood down and Public Health staff are currently investigating.

Currently, Middlemore's assessment is that the public health risk is low as the staff member was asymptomatic, fully vaccinated, was detected through routine testing, wore appropriate PPE while at work, and the individual is reported to have taken all the appropriate precautions once notified.

Testing
Yesterday, 49,745 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.

Testing centres in Auckland had another busy day yesterday with 22,735 swabs taken across Auckland, including 8,800 at community testing centres and around 13,800 at general practice and urgent care clinics.

There are 22 community testing centres available across Auckland today, including four restricted access testing centres that are by invitation-only for high-risk groups and to prioritise essential health care workers, six regular community testing centres and 12 pop-up testing centres.

A new pop-up community testing centre has opened at Mountfort Park in Manurewa today and the pop-up testing centre at Pukekohe showgrounds has been extended until August 31.

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 2,812,976.

The seven-day rolling average is 34,504.

New MIQ testing requirement
An additional testing requirement is being introduced to Managed Isolation Facilities.

From today, Wednesday August 25, returnees whose room is on the same floor, and in the vicinity of a confirmed Day 0/1 or Day 3 case of COVID-19, will now also be tested at Day 6 or 7, in addition to their existing day 0/1, 3 and 12 tests.

This is a recommendation following the review of the Crowne Plaza case.

Wastewater testing
COVID-19 was detected in a sample collected on Sunday August 22 from Warkworth. This follows a non-detection on August 21 and a previous positive result on August 17 2021. The genome sequencing result has confirmed that the RNA detected is associated with this August Delta outbreak (reported earlier). This supports there being a case connected to this outbreak in the Warkworth catchment.

In Auckland, COVID-19 was detected in samples collected on Sunday August 22 and Monday August 23 from all eight sites tested in Auckland, except for the Monday sample from North Shore (Rosedale, Albany) which was not available for analysis.

In the Wellington region, the virus has only been detected in samples collected from Moa Point, Wellington (20, 21, 22 and 23 August) and may reflect known cases shedding in the catchment.

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

Contact tracing
As of 9am today, 20,383 individual contacts have been identified and 62 per cent have had a test. The majority of these contacts are close contacts.

Locations of interest
There are now over 480 locations of interest listed on the Ministry's website.

'We are continuing to update this information regularly every two hours between 8am and 8pm,” says a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

'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
Yesterday 56,872 first doses were given, and 23,161 second doses were given, bringing yesterday's total doses administered to 80,033. This is the biggest daily total to date by more than 16,000 doses.

More than 2.93 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to date. Of these, 1.88 million are first doses and more than 1.05 million are second doses.

More than 167,000 Māori have received their first vaccination. Of these, more than 96,000 have also had their second vaccinations.

More than 109,000 doses have been administered to Pacific peoples. Of these, more than 65,000 have also received their second doses.

NZ COVID Tracer
NZ COVID Tracer now has 3,065,491 registered users.

Poster scans have reached 329,428,701and users have created 14,194,933 manual diary entries.

There have been 703,870 scans in the 24 hours to midday yesterday.

New Zealand is staying at Alert Level 4 until 11.59pm on Friday, and Auckland will remain at Level 4 until at least 11.59pm on Tuesday.