Coronavirus: Two new confirmed cases of COVID-19 found in the community

The Ministry of Health on Saturday said there have been two new cases of COVID-19 found in the community since Friday's update.

A third case was detected in a quarantine facility.

"Both community cases have been epidemiologically linked to the wider Auckland August cluster," the ministry said in a statement.

"One case has been linked as a close contact to the Americold household sub-cluster and the other is a close contact of a confirmed case linked to the Mount Roskill Evangelical Church sub-cluster."

The imported case is a young child linked to a previously confirmed case, who arrived in the country from India on August 23. They were already in quarantine with family members. 

"There are 77 people linked to the community cluster who remain at the Auckland quarantine facility, which includes 60 people who have tested positive for COVID-19."

Since the first case in the new outbreak was found on August 11, there have been 3222 close contacts identified - 3177 have been reached and are in self-isolation.

Two people remain in hospital with COVID-19 - one in North Shore Hospital’s general ward and one in ICU in Waikato Hospital.

There are now 112 active cases. One person was deemed recovered overnight. The total number of confirmed cases to date is 1416.

The overnight death of former Cook Islands Prime Minister Joe Williams has brought New Zealand's death toll to 24.