New Zealand will mostly lift its Covid-19 lockdown this week, with only the country's infection epicentre, Auckland, to remain under strict stay-at-home orders, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said.

According to AFP, Ardern said about three million New Zealanders would no longer be under stay-at-home orders as of Tuesday overnight, and schools would reopen on Thursday for the first time in three weeks.

But she added that Auckland, where the country's Delta-variant outbreak emerged late last month, would remain under hard lockdown for at least another week as the virus was not yet contained in the city of two million.