Covid 19 Omicron outbreak: Nine deaths, less than 5000 new cases today

Thousands more Covid-19 community cases are expected to be reported today, as the long tail of New Zealand's Omicron outbreak drags on. Photo / Dean Purcell

There are 4841 new cases of Covid-19 in the community today, and nine new deaths.

There are 383 people in hospital with the virus, including nine in intensive care.

The nine new virus-linked deaths, that occurred in the last two days, took the total number of publicly reported deaths with Covid to 1149, and the seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 14.

Of the people whose deaths reported today, one was from the Northland region, three were from the Auckland region, one was from Waikato, one was from Wairarapa, two were from Canterbury, and one was from South Canterbury.

Four were females and five were males.

Two people were their 60s, four were in their 70s, and three were in their 80s, the Ministry of Health said.

The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers stood at 6904 – nearly 1000 fewer than at last Sunday, when it was 7863.

Most of those new community cases were in Auckland (1582), followed by Canterbury (771), Capital and Coast (405), Waikato (342), Southern (300) and Nelson Marlborough (208).

Others were reported in Bay of Plenty (124), Lakes (80), Hawke's Bay (130), MidCentral (156), Whanganui (37), Taranaki (128), Tairāwhiti (25), Wairarapa (49), Hutt Valley (173), South Canterbury (105), Southern (300) and West Coast (67).

The number of active community cases – or those identified in the past seven days and not yet classified as recovered - stood at 48,310, while there were also 43 new imported cases.

Of the 383 people currently in hospital, roughly a third were in Auckland (36 in Waitemata, 31 in Counties-Manukau and 59 in Auckland) - while 28 were reported in Waikato, 34 in Wellington, and 64 in Canterbury.

The average age of people hospitalised is 60.

The ministry reported that nearly 9000 rapid antigen tests had been reported in the last 24 hours, compared with about 2133 PCR tests.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Health reported 6369 new cases of Covid-19 in the community, and 13 new deaths, which took the number of virus-linked mortalities to 1140.

The seven-day rolling average of cases stood at 6924 on Saturday, compared with 7972 the week before.

More than 1.13 million people are known to have tested positive for the virus in New Zealand since the pandemic began – although modellers estimate as many as half of Kiwis may have had the virus.

Auckland continues to have the highest number of new community cases - 2068 were reported yesterday - as well as hospitalisations.

This week, Omicron sub-variants with increased transmissibility, but not thought to cause more serious illness, were also detected in the community.

While most recently sequenced cases in New Zealand continued to be of the Omicron BA.2 sub-variant, the first community case of Omicron sub-variant BA.2.12.1 was discovered in Hawke's Bay this week, health officials said.

The case, which had no clear link to the border, was from a test result returned earlier this month.

Director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield this week joined more than 528 million others around the world since early 2020 to test positive for Covid-19.

The health boss became unwell while in Switzerland for the World Health Assembly.

He has mild symptoms and is self-isolating in Geneva.