Covid-19 Omicron outbreak: 4540 new Covid cases, 473 in hospital, 16 deaths

There are 4540 new community cases of Covid and 473 hospitalisations, 10 people are in ICU.

There are 16 new Covid-related deaths.

One was from Northland, four were from the Auckland region, one was from Bay of Plenty, one from Lakes, two from Hawke's Bay, one was from Taranaki, four from the Wellington region and two were from Canterbury.

Three were in their 60s, three were in their 70s, seven were in their 80s, and three were aged over 90. Eight were women and eight were men.

In total, there have been 1807 deaths in New Zealand that have been confirmed as being attributable to Covid-19, either as the underlying cause of death or as a contributing factor.

The seven-day rolling average increase in total deaths attributable to Covid-19 is now 12.

The seven-day rolling average of cases today is 3928; last Thursday, it was 4750.

For Covid-19 hospitalisations, today's weekly average is 527 while last Thursday it was 617.

Those in hospital are in: Northland (17), Waitematā (64), Counties Manukau (54), Auckland (57), Waikato (74), Bay of Plenty (15), Lakes (12), Hawke's Bay (22), MidCentral (21), Whanganui (five), Taranaki (nine), Tairāwhiti (one), Wairarapa (eight), Capital & Coast (14), Hutt Valley (11), Nelson Marlborough (seven), Canterbury (56), West Coast (four), South Canterbury (eight) and Southern (14).

Of today's 4540 cases, 164 people had recently travelled overseas.

On winter illnesses, the Ministry of Health said in the week to August 14 86 people were in Auckland and Counties Manukau hospitals for Sari illnesses (severe acute respiratory infection).

Human Metapneumovirus was detected in 69 per cent of those tested, rhinovirus in 28 per cent, Covid-19 in 14 per cent and influenza in 4 per cent.

"The current rate of hospitalisations in Auckland and Counties Manukau is in line with rates seen in pre-Covid-19 years."

Dr Andrew Old, deputy director general of the Ministry of Health, said broadly Covid community case numbers are trending downwards.

The next question was "how low will we go" in terms of daily cases, he said.

"Pleasingly the case numbers in over 65s ... have also dropped for the fourth week running."

Case numbers in health workers had also declined for the fifth week running while wastewater detections had also dropped.

Hospitalisation numbers had also dropped in the past week, after weeks of hospital numbers remaining stubbornly high, Old said.

He said hospitalisation numbers tended to lag behind case numbers and so a reduction in hospitalisations indicated the transmission of Covid was falling.

Old hoped New Zealand had passed its peak death rate, although it was too early to say for sure.

There are now 1807 deaths health officials are attributing to Covid.

In the past seven days, an average of 12 deaths have been confirmed each day as attributable to the virus.

Old said because New Zealand had a low number of cases at the beginning of the outbreak, deaths in this country remained low compared to elsewhere.

As an example, if New Zealand had suffered a death per million people rate similar to the United Kingdom, it would've equated to 13,000 deaths here.

If New Zealand had the same rate of death as the US it would've led to 15,000 deaths here.

Dr Pete Watson, interim national medical director at Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand said the nation's health system still faced a major challenge this winter.

However, it was encouraging to see Covid case numbers falling.

That together with falling cases of influenza and other winter illnesses led Watson to hope some of the pressures on hospitals across the country would soon ease.