COVID-19 modeller Shaun Hendy warns it's too early to celebrate despite case numbers dropping

Professor Shaun Hendy is warning Kiwis not to celebrate too early as numbers came down for the first time in this outbreak. 

The Ministry of Health announced on Monday there were 53 new cases - all in Auckland - down from 83 the previous day. 

Hendy, who is a COVID-19 modeller at the University of Auckland, says there could be a few reasons for the drop. 

"As I have to say over and over again, one day's data even two days data... you can't read too much into it," Hendy told The Project. "It is good it's coming down, we'd rather it coming down than going up but we need to watch the trend over several days.

"Just bearing in mind we have just come through the weekend and that can produce delays in getting data back."

Hendy says the Government is doing a good job with its daily updates but called for more depth details to be included. 

The Government does at times provide detailed information during the press-conference about each case, especially when pressed by the media.

"If we could get that breakdown of cases, it's a household contact, it's an essential worker, it's people that may have been out in the community that would be really helpful," he says. "You can guess at some of that data by looking at other data such as the locations of interest but it would be great for the public to know and understand that."

The COVID-19 modeller praised Kiwis for their response to the outbreak and not getting caught up in misinformation. 

"It is unfortunate that this sort of thing [misinformation] is out there and some people are vulnerable to it and it has the risk of undermining our response but generally New Zealanders are pretty sensible and we haven't fallen for that sort of stuff." 

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Monday Auckland will remain at level 4 for another two weeks while every south of New Zealand's biggest city will move to level 3 from 11:59pm on Tuesday.

The Prime Minister also revealed Northland will move to level 3 at midnight on Thursday if additional wastewater testing comes back negative until then. 

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