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Watch live: Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield gives Covid-19 update
There are no new cases of Covid-19 confirmed in New Zealand today, but one probable case has been reclassified as confirmed.
Watch the briefing here:
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said that means New Zealand's total of confirmed and probable cases remains the same at 1487. The total number of confirmed cases is 1137.
Bloomfield said there have been no additional deaths.
The last time there was 0 new cases was on 16 March.
Yesterday 2473 tests were done. The total number of completed tests is 152,696.
There are seven people in hospital, and none are intensive care.
There number of clusters in NZ remains at 16, three of them have now been closed as there have been no cases of community transmission in the past few days.
"Clearly these are encouraging figures today, but it is just one moment in time. The real test is later this week when we factor in the incubation period for the virus and the time it takes for people to display symptoms which is generally five to six days after exposure," Bloomfield said.
"That's when we will have an indication if there are any new cases coming through that might be emerging in the community as a result of our shift from level 4 to level 3.
"We cannot afford to squander all the hard work and effort of the past weeks. We did see at the weekend that it can be easy to start slackening off and we need to maintain discipline and keep pushing on and sustain the advantage that we have fought so hard for."
Bloomfield said staff and students at Marist College in Auckland will be able to undergo free testing in a joint initiative between the Public Health Unit and DHB and the school.
While only half of the 94 cases at Marist came from within the school ... it's important for the rest of the school to be tested," he said.
Bloomfield said 1.35 million flu vaccines have been distributed to general practices, pharmacies and workplaces so far this year - a record year for NZ.
"I can reassure those of us that are relatively healthy that there is a very low level of influenza circulating in our community," he said.
"Over 451,000 people over 65 have been vaccinated already this year, exceeding the total number vaccinated in the whole campaign last year.
"More Māori over 65 have been vaccinated in the past five weeks than the entire year of vaccination last year."
Around 700,000 vaccines have been registered as administered as of 30 April, Boomfield said.
On stock shortages Bloomfield said: "Any GP or pharmacy that has run out of stock at his point and still has at-risk people requiring vaccination should get in touch with their local immunisation coordinator who've been coordinating the process of redistribution and/or prioritising access to the next shipment of vaccines when it arrives."
The next vaccine shipments will be arriving this week and next week, he said.
On whether Bloomfield has been in contact with Australia on how a trans-Tasman bubble would work and ensuring both nations have the same and robust processes, he said: "There is an agreement, at the highest level, to have a trans-Tasman bubble that we are working very closely with our Australian counterparts on what those key public health pillars would need to be around how we are testing for and identifying isolating cases and contacts and also our position around contact tracing and our ability to exchange information smoothly to ensure any contacts or potential contacts could be followed up if they had travelled in either direction."
Earlier today, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern cautioned against "acting like we've won already" against Covid-19. She told Morning Report level 3 was like a waiting room where after a cycle of transmission the government can use the data to assess whether there are unexplained cases that are cause for concern.
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