Both new cases have an epidemiological link to an existing case and they are both associated with the bereavement events sub-cluster that is epidemiologically linked to the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship group.

One of the cases is a student at Sunnyvale School in Henderson. They were not infectious when they last attended school and Auckland Regional Public Health Service has not identified any close contacts among the school community. The school remains open and safe for students and staff to attend.

There remain 33 cases in the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship group and there are now 15 cases in the bereavement events group, which includes the cases whose source of infection was the bereavement events.

The Ministry of Health says that leaders of the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship have actively encouraged all members of the congregation to get retested for COVID-19 and comply with other public health advice such as self-isolation.

As a result of this, at 8am this morning NZ laboratories had registered new tests for 98 per cent of the congregation.

"We want to thank them again for their participation in contributing to our efforts to control the wider Auckland cluster," says a Ministry of Health spokesperson.

There are now 63 people linked to the community cluster who remain in the Auckland quarantine facility, which includes 47 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and their household contacts.

"Since August 11, our contact tracing team has identified 3,647 close contacts of cases, of which 3,640 have been contacted and are self-isolating, and we are in the process of contacting the rest."

Today there are three people in hospital with COVID-19 – one is in isolation on a ward in Auckland City Hospital. Two are in ICU, at North Shore and Waikato hospitals.

With today's two new cases and eight additional recovered cases, other total number of active cases is 108. Of those, 38 are imported cases in MIQ facilities, and 70 are community cases.

New Zealand's total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 is now 1,444, which is the number that has been reported to the World Health Organization.

Yesterday NZ laboratories processed 8,838 tests, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 857,258.