PM Jacinda Ardern and director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield this afternoon gave an update on the three Valentine's Day cases, all of which are within one family.
Most grieving families faced with having to postpone or scale back planned farewells for their loved ones are just grateful to be able to still have a funeral at all, according to one of the biggest funeral homes in the country.
Morrisons Funeral Directors Henderson manager Daniel Richardson said ithad been really tough on families learning the farewells they had been planning for their loved ones suddenly had to be moved overnight.
Under level 3 which is currently in place until Wednesday night - Aucklanders can only have funerals with no more than 10 people in attendance.
On Sunday, staff had the hard task of contacting five families and break the news that the funerals planned for Monday or Tuesday would have to be significantly reduced in size or postponed
He said the majority of these families were choosing to take a gamble and postponing the funerals until at least Thursday.
"Some can't have anything at all as 10 doesn't quite cut it for them so they kind of just need to have a bit more leeway I suppose."
".... Seven have chosen to delay which is a bit of a gamble because we could be in the same position going forward. Delaying isn't a sure-fire option but we are definitely giving people the option to reschedule,"
Two of the nine families affected so far had opted to ahead with a much smaller gathering of only 10 guests present.
One person had been so passionate about allowing more people to be present that they had put the funeral on hold until Auckland returned to level 1 - despite there being no guarantees when this would be.
The rules allow for a funeral director and celebrant to be allowed in addition to the 10 guests.
"We are working hard to try and give them what they want but we just have these guidelines that we can't get around," Richardson said.
He said the main thing people wanted was to still be able to have a funeral to say goodbye and most were aware that this had been unable to happen last March when the country was in level 4.
"They would rather have something rather than nothing, which is why no one has actually cancelled anything."
The Funeral Directors Association estimated 80 funerals were postponed on Monday.
Funeral Directors Association president Gary Taylor said the announcement had an immediate and devastating impact on grieving families.
"Telling a family that they have to delay the meaningful farewell of their loved one less than 24 hours beforehand is one of the hardest things we have to do."
He said the sector had already been facing a busy week due to the short week last week, which meant there were a substantial number of families being affected by the impact level 3 had on funerals.
