Aucklanders now have to wait until the middle of next month to find out when tough lockdown rules will ease and when they might move out of alert level 4.

There are 562 community cases in the country - 547 of them in Auckland - and the number of new cases slowed back to 53 yesterday.

The rest of the country, other than Northland, moves to alert level 3 at midnight.

Auckland school children will have at least two more weeks of home learning, while those south of Auckland are getting ready to re-open for the children of essential workers at level 3.

A scaled-back Parliament will resume sitting in person today after plans for a virtual option were rejected by Opposition parties. But the Greens and Te Paati Māori are refusing to come back under alert level 4.

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