On Friday, health officials announced 11 new cases, all in Auckland, taking the Delta outbreak past the unfortunate milestone.

On the bright side, the number of recovered Kiwis now outnumber active cases, for the first time since the outbreak was identified precisely a month ago.

Of the 1007 to test positive for COVID-19 since August 17, 549 have recovered and 458 remain active.

It is New Zealand's 15th consecutive day where cases have been between 10 and 35, showing the difficulty of eliminating a Delta outbreak.

Director General of Public Health Caroline McElnay repeated the confident line taken by health officials in recent days.

"We are closing in around this outbreak," she said.

"We can be cautiously optimistic about the containment of it."

Auckland has now been in a harsh level four lockdown for 31 days.

On Monday, Jacinda Ardern's cabinet will review the country's lockdown settings, and is likely to move Auckland's 1.7 million residents to a lesser level three lockdown.

The only other place to have seen infections during this outbreak has been Wellington, which is in level two along with the rest of New Zealand.

Australian Associated Press