There have are five new Covid-19 related deaths.
The total number of publicly reported Covid-19 related deaths to date is 156.
"The virus is clearly seeking out those that are unvaccinated," Northern Regional Health Coordination Centre's associate chief clinical officer Dr Anthony Jordan said.
He urged people to get any doses for which they were due.
He said getting boosted reduced a person's likelihood of passing Covid-19 on to others.
The ministry is urging everyone with symptoms to get tested and, if using a RAT test, to record whether it is positive or negative on My Covid Record.
Schools affected
The Education Ministry yesterday revealed that there were 64,500 cases in school, kura and early childhood centres in the past 10 days. Three in four New Zealand schools were now dealing with active Covid-19 cases with close to all schools in Taranaki, Whanganui, and Manawatū impacted by the outbreak.
Current data shows Hutt Valley DHB and Capital and Coast DHB are second and fourth for regions with the most active cases per 100,000 people.
At the same time, experts are optimistic Auckland has passed its peak.
Old said case numbers in Auckland had continued to track downwards, confirming the region had passed its peak for case numbers, which were expected to decline in coming weeks.
With new hospital admissions appearing to plateau, Old said he hoped hospitalisations would turn a corner over the next week.
However, pressure continues to mount at the region's hospitals with hospitalisation rates remaining high and staffing numbers below ideal levels.
Returning to normal
This morning Attorney-General David Parker signalled New Zealand would return to normal faster than people might imagine given the Omicron outbreak had not overwhelmed the health system.
"Next week we will be making announcements on what happens to vaccine certificates and vaccine mandates.
"So as we pass through the Omicron peak I've got some confidence that we're going to return to normality probably faster than people expect," Parker told the AM show.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the traffic light settings, mandates and vaccine passes were on the table for discussion by Cabinet with a decision on their future expected in the coming week.
"We have already indicated that as we come down, off our peak of Omicron, that we will be re-looking at everything from mandates, the vaccine passes - which we don't believe will need to be used as widely anymore - and we will also be looking at all of the settings within the traffic light."
The country is at the red traffic light setting of the Covid-19 Protecting Framework, which came into force on December 3 to replace the alert level system.
New Zealand moved to red on January 24 after fears Omicron could be circulating in the community.
