Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says alert level 3 is strong enough to eliminate Auckland's latest Covid-19 outbreak.
Alert level 3 will arrive at midnight on Tuesday after five weeks at alert level 4, but the current Covid-19 delta outbreak is still producing around 20 cases a day and modellers and health officials are nervous.
Ardern spoke told Morning Report the plan is still to crush the outbreak rather than suppress it, and alert level 3 can do that.
"Level three is still a very restricted environment, it is still a place where we have the ability to stamp it [Covid-19] out, but we need everybody's help."
She said she won't be using vaccination coverage to make decisions about changing restrictions either.
"All the way through vaccine has been an additional support for us, it has not been the basis of every decision that we've made."
