The death of an Invercargill man has been confirmed as being caused by coronavirus as the New Zealand toll hits 12.

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield announced nine new cases on Sunday afternoon. There were four confirmed cases and five suspected cases.

That brings New Zealand's total number of cases to 1431, 912 of whom have recovered.

An elderly Invercargill man who died on Tuesday was on Sunday confirmed as a Covid-19 victim. The case, first reported by Stuff, was thought to be the first Covid-19 home death. The person died at home and was cared for by family.

It brings the New Zealand death toll to 12.

There were 13 new cases of Covid-19 announced on Saturday, bringing the total to 1422. The number of people who had recovered rose 51 to 867. 

This was only slightly higher than the eight cases announced on Friday — the lowest number recorded since the lockdown began.

Tomorrow, Cabinet will make a decision on whether or not to lift the strict level 4 lockdown measures that New Zealand has been living under for nearly four weeks. That announcement will come at 4pm on Monday.

Even if the restrictions were loosened, the country, or parts of it, would only move to alert level 3. 

The Government has attempted to manage expectations by conceding that this isn't all that different to level 4.

Most people will continue to work from home and most retail and hospitality businesses will remain shuttered.

Level 3 would however allow non-essential businesses to begin offering deliveries - take-aways and drive-throughs will also be allowed to open.

"Our emphasis at level 3 moves from 'essential' economic activity to 'safe' economic activity," said Finance Minister Grant Robertson on Wednesday.

On Friday, as the Government delivered its last Covid-19 update before the weekend, Robertson appeared to caution the public from thinking the low number of new Covid-19 cases would mean a lifting of lockdown measures. 

He remarked that similar lockdowns had recently been extended around the world.

"I share this as a reminder that this is a long game — a marathon, not a short sprint," he said.

One of the measures the Government will be looking at is the widespread sentinel testing now being undertaken around the country.

There are fears of "silent transmission" of Covid-19 through large swathes of people who don't show symptoms.

By the time someone eventually does show symptoms, the virus has spread so far that it's often too late to effectively contain the spread.

Health professionals are testing samples of people in areas close to places where there have been significant clusters of infection to determine whether or not silent transmission has occurred.

In Queenstown, 300 people were tested at supermarkets after a hereford cattle conference sparked an infection cluster there.

All tests returned negative results.

Auckland, Waikato, and Canterbury have also seen sentinel testing. As of Saturday, all of the 308 people tested in the Waikato returned negative results. 

Not all of the tests for the Canterbury site had yet been processed, but the ones that have been have all returned negative results. 

Three-quarters of the 442 samples taken in Auckland yesterday have been processed, and none of those tests were positive.