The COVID-19 situation is looking rosier in New Zealand, with Wellington recording no new community cases again.
Despite the good news, there are growing calls for improvements to be made to the pandemic response to ensure New Zealand stays ahead of the virus.
Wellingtonians have been braving the elements to keep each other safe and so far they are, with no new cases of COVID-19 to report in the capital on Saturday.
"I think this is really good news because obviously every passing day with no new cases increases the likelihood this visitor from Australia wasn't infectious and didn't infect people in this country," says epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker.
It's been a week since the man from Sydney infected with the highly contagious delta variant arrived in Wellington for a weekend trip.
"We've been very lucky," says Prof Baker.
There were 2300 tests processed in the region on Friday and 65 percent of the man's 2213 contacts have returned negative. The rest are yet to come in.
"There may be cases that still appear so we can't say we're in the clear yet," says Prof Baker.
The capital's into its third day in alert level 2 and hospitality is struggling.
"It's pretty rough, the weather's rough and there's no punters out so it's not great for our industry," says Matt McLaughlin of Hoff Hospitality.
There's hope the current restrictions won't last much longer.
"Hopefully they'll make the right decision and put us back into level 1 so we can get back to some normality," says McLaughlin.
But if Wellington does have a lucky escape, Prof Baker warns the COVID-19 defence system still needs a shakeup.
"A requirement at least at one level of level 2 for people to wear masks indoors [and] we just simply need to make it mandatory to scan into high-risk indoor settings."
The public is on board.
Wellingtonians are hoping Sunday continues the run of good news.
Cabinet will meet virtually in the morning to decide if Wellington's alert level will stay the same or change.
Level 2 is supposed to expire at midnight on Sunday night. Wellingtonians Newshub has spoken to are optimistic a shift down to level 1 is possible as long as zero cases continues.
All eyes will be on the 1pm update to see what next week will be like in Wellington.
