There are no active community coronavirus cases left in New Zealand, the Ministry of Health has revealed.
It comes as three new imported cases of COVID-19 were reported in the last 24 hours - none of which were linked to any of New Zealand's existing clusters.
Meanwhile nine previously reported cases are now considered to have recovered - including the six remaining active cases from the recent community outbreak.
The absence of active community cases acts as a final justification of the decision to scale down Auckland's coronavirus response to alert level 1 at 11:59pm on Wednesday.
The Health Minister says the eradication of COVID-19 in the community for a second time is "a big milestone".
"New Zealanders have once again through their collective actions squashed the virus," Chris Hipkins said.
"The systems that have been developed and strengthened since our first wave of COVID-19 have worked very effectively to chase down the virus, isolate it, and eliminate it."\
"It's really good news, but as always we cannot sit back. Constant vigilance and team work, with everyone playing their part to ensure we stay on top of the virus, needs to be our new normal for some time to come."
New Zealand's second wave of COVID-19 in the community caused 186 new infections. Of these, 179 people were linked to the Auckland August cluster, six people were linked to the Christchurch returnees group, and one was the worker at Auckland's Rydges hotel.
The Auckland August cluster is expected to officially be declared close four weeks from now -when there have been no new cases for two incubation periods from when the last case recovered.
New Zealand's new imported COVID-19 cases
Of the three new imported cases, two tested positive at around day 12 of their stay at the Ibis in Hamilton after arriving from Ethiopia via Dubai on September 23.
The remaining case arrived from Dubai on September 29. They were staying at the Four Points Hotel and were transferred to the Auckland quarantine facility after testing positive.
There three new cases bring the total number of confirmed and probable cases in New Zealand to 1861 - of which, 37 are active and linked to overseas travel..
One person remains in isolation on a ward in Auckland's Middlemore Hospital with COVID-19.
Meanwhile laboratories processed another 5334 tests on Tuesday, taking the total number of tests completed to date to 990,973.
