Another 27 cases of COVID-19 were reported by the Ministry of Health on Saturday afternoon, most of them linked but five which are yet to be.
All the new cases were found in Auckland, which is at alert level 3.
"Fourteen of these are household contacts, eight are known contacts and five are under investigation to determine how they are linked to the current outbreak," the ministry said in a statement.
"Due to the highly infectious nature of the Delta variant within households, we expect to see fluctuations in case numbers at this stage in the outbreak."
There have now been 1295 cases in this outbreak, all but 22 in Auckland/upper Hauraki.
Ten of Friday's 19 cases have exposure events, the ministry said. Just 10 cases from the past two weeks remain not epidemiologically linked to known clusters.
There are 22 people in hospital, three in ICU or HDU.
No unexpected detections of the virus in wastewater have been picked up in the last 24 hours.
Counties Manukau DHB has also reported a possible COVID-19 exposure event at Middlemore Hospital.
A person presented to the emergency department on Friday night for non-COVID issues, but staff noticed they were "displaying a COVID-like symptom" so did a test, which came back positive.
"The patient subsequently returned a positive COVID-19 result and was moved to a COVID-19 isolation ward at Middlemore Hospital.
"The patient was wearing a mask at all times in ED. All staff were wearing appropriate PPE and as such no staff members are required to stand down."
One new case was detected at the border.
Meanwhile, more than 1000 protesters gathered in Auckland Domain ahead of the ministry's latest update, demanding an end to lockdowns - but ironically risking causing a super-spreader event which would prolong restrictions, medical professor Des Gorman told Newshub overnight.
"How long to do you keep going, saying to the people who behave, 'You've got to stay home, not visit relatives outside of Auckland, you can't do this and you can't do that,' because the good folks will go, 'Hang on a minute - we've been behaving impeccably.'
"But there's a small group in society who [say], 'You know what you can do with your regulations.'
Dr Gorman said they were "dickheads".
Getting to zero unlinked cases is essential before the Government should even consider going to level 2, epidemiologist Rod Jackson told Newshub Nation on Saturday morning.
Meanwhile in Australia, Victoria recorded 1488 new cases - its highest daily total yet - and two more deaths. More protests are reportedly planned for Saturday against measures to control the outbreak.
Queensland reported two new cases, bringing the active number to 25.
