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The Prime Minister is welcoming emerging signs the level four lockdown is working to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.
Jacinda Arden says growth in new cases is linear rather than exponential, and data scientists are cautiously optimistic the numbers could start to fall.
Today there were 54 new cases, 32 of them confirmed and 22 probable, making a new total of 1160.
So far 241 people have recovered and 12 people are in hospital – four in ICU and one in a critical condition.
The percentage directly linked to overseas travel has dropped to 42 per cent, with 41 per cent attributable to other known cases and 2 per cent by community transmission.
Māori make up 8.5 per cent of cases.
Testing capacity continued to ramp up, with 2908 tests done yesterday and 44,000 tests available, with more arriving in the country in the next week.
The Prime Minister has taken action against Health Minister David Clark after he admitted driving his family to a beach for a walk early in the lockdown, on top of his unauthorised mountain biking excursion.
She stripped him of associate finance and demoted him to the bottom of the cabinet list, but left him in the health role because the country can’t afford the disruption involved in changing the leadership of the portfolio in the middle of a pandemic.
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