In that period, the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 also nearly doubled from 32 to 62, with the average age of patients varying between 55 and 65.
Significantly, there was no one in ICU with Covid during that time, although one case was confirmed yesterday.
We will need more time and data to see if this trend continues but, at least at this point, the Covid link to ICU health severity is much better than when Delta was dominant.
The three worst days of the Delta outbreak for ICU occupancy were November 10 and 12 (11 patients) and November 29 (10 patients). On those days there were respectively 81, 85, and 93 people in hospital, and 147, 201, and 182 daily confirmed Covid cases.
So, while case numbers for Omicron are much higher, New Zealand's vaccination rates appear to have blunted the impact so far with fewer people in hospital or ICU. Omicron is more transmissible but also less damaging to the lungs than Delta.
However, the sheer weight of cases likely in the coming weeks could potentially push more people into hospitals and ICU. And more of those people than before can be expected to have some level of vaccination, simply because more than 10 million doses have been administered.
More than two million people have had a booster and nearly four million have had at least two doses. Although three vaccine shots offer better protection than two against getting sick enough for hospital treatment, a lot of Kiwis are still within that six-month time frame after their second dose where their immunity levels are good.
On links between cases, hospital admissions, and vaccination, the ministry had this to say: "Since January 22 when the first Omicron case was detected in the community, double-vaccinated cases are 10 times less likely to require hospitalisation than unvaccinated cases - 4 per cent of unvaccinated cases have required hospitalisation and 0.4 per cent of fully vaccinated cases have required hospitalisation."
Even so, getting the booster improves people's odds significantly, as Omicron can hurdle some immunity in double-dosed people, exploit underlying medical conditions, and the variant makes exposure to infection much more common than Delta did.
Since the Delta outbreak in August, Māori and Pacific people have made up 65 per cent of all Covid cases and 73 per cent of all hospitalised cases, according to Ministry of Health figures. The case for boosters is especially urgent for these Kiwis.
A study in Queensland has found that the likelihood of dying from Covid there for a boosted person is one in 61,000, compared to one in 5500 for the double-dosed and one in 3000 for the unvaccinated.
The vast majority of the Australian state's 400 deaths have occurred in the past two months during the Omicron wave there, after its interstate borders reopened. More than half of those who died were in residential care.
The variant has had a slow climb of nearly a month in New Zealand to get to 1000 cases a day, probably through a combination of the closed border, test and tracing, and high vaccination rates.
Now the old system of testing and tracing is less effective and, in just over a week, the border reopens to vaccinated New Zealand citizens and residents and other eligible travellers from Australia.
Then from March 13, Kiwis, residents and other eligible people from the rest of the world can come in. Fully vaccinated people can self-isolate on return while the unvaccinated will go through MIQ.
That will still likely mean more infections getting through to join the throng. Mid-March is when the 10,000 infections-a-day onslaught is expected.
As for booster vaccinations, demand this week has been steady - between 20,000 and 50,000 a day - rather than spectacular.
Really, last orders are being called on boosters before confirmed cases and infections reach people you know.
