There are 62 new cases of Covid-19 in the community today (Wednesday August 25).

Aside from one case in Wellington, all the new cases are located in Auckland.

Director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield addressed the increase in the number of cases day-by-day.

“The good thing about this is, while this is steady growth, it’s not exponential,” Ashley said.

The rate of growth is expected to decrease with the measures in place, he said.

Once again there are no community cases identified in the South Island today.

Yesterday the Southern District Health Board (SDHB) said there were 73 people documented as close contacts of Covid-19 cases who were isolating in the Southern District.

There were more people being reported in the news and social media to be close contacts, SDHB medical officer of health Dr Susan Jack said, and this discrepancy could be attributed to the fact people need to call Healthline to be put into the National Investigation and Tracing Centre if they were at a location of interest at the time of a Covid-19 case.

Covid-19 response minister Chris Hipkins said from today people aged 30 and over can book to be vaccinated against the virus.

There were a record 80,000 New Zealanders vaccinated yesterday.

Chris said the country must move to vaccination being a “much bigger collective defence against the virus” than border closures and lockdown measures.

Twelve people with Covid-19 are in hospital today; none of those associated with the current outbreak are in ICU.

PHOTO: Supplied