There are 68 new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today (Thursday August 26).

Director of public health Dr Caroline McElnay said this brought the national total to 277, and 263 of these are in Auckland and 14 are in Wellington. 

Wastewater sampling has been undertaken at 97 locations, including 27 locations in the South Island. 

Covid-19 has been detected in samples from the Christchurch catchment from Saturday, but there are three active cases in managed isolation in that city.

All other sites outside Auckland and Wellington continue to test negative, she said.

Caroline said one previously reported community case has been reclassified today after being confirmed as a false positive. 

Dr Caroline McElnay

The two new Wellington cases identified today are household contacts of confirmed cases.

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the number of new cases was “not necessarily unexpected” as the Delta variant of Covid-19 is more infectious.

“With Delta, people are infectious much sooner and they appear to give it to more people,” Jacinda said. 

If the lockdown had not been implemented, the cases would have spread beyond Auckland and Wellington, she said.

Caroline said the number of contacts has continued to increase.

More than 24,000 individual contacts have now been formally identified, she said.

An additional 20 locations of interest have been identified, with three added today. However, at this stage there have only been 13 cases of infection at locations of interest, the PM said.

PHOTOS: Supplied