Covid-19: 9405 new cases of Covid in last seven days - expert urges booster shots before Christmas

A Covid-19 modeller is urging eligible Kiwis to get boosted if they haven't been, amid the growing probability New Zealand could see another coronavirus wave before Christmas. Photo / File

There were 9405 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand last week, the Ministry of Health says.

And as of midnight last night, there were 134 people in hospital with Covid-19.

Twenty-five new deaths over the past week have been linked to Covid.

Of the 25 people whose deaths the ministry reported today: six were from Auckland region, five were from Waikato, two were from Bay of Plenty, one was from Tairawhiti, one was from Taranaki, two were from MidCentral, two were from Canterbury, two were from West Coast, four were from Southern.

Three of the people were in their 60s, five were in their 70s, 11 were in their 80s and six were aged over 90.

The seven-day rolling average of new Covid cases had risen from 1422 to 1598 last week.

Out of last week's cases, 1021 (or 11 per cent) were reinfections.

Covid-19 modeller professor Michael Plank last week urged eligible Kiwis to get boosted if they haven't been, amid the growing probability New Zealand could get another coronavirus wave before Christmas.

Plank told the Herald it was possible that wave – expected to come on the back of building surges in the Northern Hemisphere – might even compare with July's.

Cases and hospitalisations already appeared to be on the rise in Denmark, Belgium and the UK.

In Germany, where reported cases tripled in three weeks to reach 96,000 on September 29, the country's federal minister of health Karl Lauterbach told media another wave had begun.

Plank said this could be because of a combination of factors, such as people in Europe heading back to school, waning immunity, and a raft of troublesome new Omicron sub-variants.

BA.5 descendant BQ.1.1 has been popping up around the world and indicating its own potential at evading immune antibodies – but it's so new that little is known about it.

Another sub-type, BA.2.75.2, makes up just 1 per cent of Covid-19 cases, but has now been detected in nearly 50 countries – including New Zealand.

Seems increasingly likely there will be a significant wave in NZ before the year is out. Would be good to start to rolling out those bivalent Omicron boosters ASAP https://t.co/A14dmBuMUv

— Michael Plank (@MichaelPlankNZ) October 3, 2022