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The government, following a cabinet meeting at around midday on Monday, has decided Auckland will move to Alert Level 3 settings at 11.59pm on Tuesday, September 21.

The level setting change will be in effect for at least two weeks, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced in today's Covid-19 update.

It has been about five weeks since Level 4 was initiated for Auckland due to the Delta variant spreading in the community.

Ardern said an in-principle decision was made to move the region to Level 3 last week.

Today 22 cases were reported in the community and 1 in managed isolation.

Last night three household members out of nine were confirmed to be positive for the virus, linked to a positive remand prisoner. In addition, a young individual was symptomatic at Mangatangi School on the Hauraki Plains on Thursday, bringing the school to a closure.

One pop-up testing centre was set up as a result. By 11am today, there were 150 swabs taken.

There was nine total linked to the initial prisoner case. Five isolating at home have returned negative results.

The ninth members' results are pending as of 4pm today — results will return and an update will be provided to the press by the Ministry of Health.

Image: SUPPLIED/Wikicomms

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This publication comes at a cost and time but is free to read — thisquality will never paywall content as news should always be accessible at any given moment. It doesn't have to be much, as we give you a choice to choose what you want to contribute, and we ask that you consider donating to continue reading more of our news sourced from trustworthy official government and independent newswires around New Zealand at your price.

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