The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has hit a record 773 today
And the number of deaths related to the virus has hit 91, with, director general of health Ashley Bloomfield says.Bloomfield revealing a new system in how officials would report Covid-linked fatalities. Nine previously unannounced fatalities were reported as a result - including the death of a Kiwi older than 100.
There are 21,015 cases today in the community, Bloomfield said, and of the 773 people in hospital today, 16 people are in ICU.
The vast majority of today's hospitalisations were there because of Covid, he said.
Bloomfield said it was hard to tell in real time those that were there because of Covid or had Covid alongside other care needs, he said.
He said the diagnosis and the reason someone is there at hospital happens when they leave hospital, he said.
The more Covid there is in the community the more people turn up with another issues, such as an injury, but will also have Covid.
Some Covid cases will be found at hospitals incidentally.
Bloomfield said many people are just in hospital overnight or for two nights.
The rate of hospitalisations, in relation to the modelling, wasn't a surprise, he said.
Bloomfield said of today's Covid hospitalisations in Northern Region hospitals (Northland and Auckland), 125 were Māori, 199 were Pacific peoples and 224 were non-Māori and non-Pacific.
He said a full update on long Covid would be given next week during one of the press conferences.
Bloomfield said the case numbers in Auckland had appeared to plateaued and we would know in a few days if they had peaked.
There are nine further deaths of Covid-19 which previously hadn't been announced.
With one death announced in Bay of Plenty yesterday subsequently being found not to be Covid-19 related, the total number of deaths publicly reported to date is 91.
Of the nine deaths which are being reported today, one died yesterday in North Shore Hospital. The remaining eight all died in the past fortnight: four in late February and four in March.
Seven of the deaths were in Auckland and one in Waikato.
One was in their sixties; three in their seventies; two in their eighties; one in their nineties and one over 100 years of age.
The number of deaths announced today was due to changes to the reporting of Covid-related deaths, Bloomfield said.
From today, there would be a dual reporting approach.
They will report different categories:
• Number of people who died within 28 days of positive Covid-19 test;
• Number of people whose official cause of death was determined as Covid;
• Number of people where Covid was contributing factor, but not the cause;
• People who died within 28 days of positive Covid test, but cause has yet to be determined.
The total number of Covid deaths to date is 91, Bloomfield said.
Each one of these deaths represents a community and a whānau that is grieving and he passed on his condolences, he said.
New Zealand's total number of deaths remained low compared to international comparisons, he said.
People who got Covid here were getting the right level of care they needed, he said.
On vaccine mandates, and whether they were justified, Bloomfield said they were in place and like all the broader public health measures, such as mask requirements in certain settings, mandates are something that are there and are in the process of being looked at as part of the overall packaged of things.
He said we had relatively high booster rates and there was no doubt mandates and the vaccine certificates had played a role in getting high vaccination rates.
On the critical worker shortages, he said there were a number of measures in place to ease the pressure of workforces, including non-health settings and health settings.
He said the number of people who were unvaccinated and unable to work in those roles was low, he said in response to a question if he would consider allowing non-vaccinated people to go to work in critical workforces.
Dr Samantha Murton, of Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, said there has been a substantial increase in the volume of work for GPs.
Murton said GP members had reported being abused, yelled at, had things thrown at them and at her practice personally she had put up a sign up saying they respected their staff and hoped visitors and patients there did to.
Some practices had put up security guards or had locked their doors so people couldn't just walk in.
She said a huge amount of work has been put on GPs.
"We recognise the people who had been physically generally well and vaccinated and boosted were able to manage it from home," she said.
If everyone was calling GP, there would be a lot of work, she said.
GPs were working very hard and doing the best the could for their patients and although they were prepared it could be a bit messy, she said.
There were also issues around isolation and needing supporting, and sometimes they sought this from the GPs and that was okay, but added to the workload, she explained.
Her colleagues had suggested people be kind to their practices. "Please have a bit a of patience as patients and be kind to the staff."
A challenge parents were having was reporting RAT results for their children and he acknowledged those that had been calling the 0800 number and experiencing delays, Bloomfield said.
Capacity in the 0800 222 478 number had been increased, he said.
Test results for children 12 and under can be done online, via My Covid Record, from tomorrow, he said.
He thanks everyone who had logged their RAT result so far.
A way to get around the lower sensitivity of RATS was to do them repeatedly and that's why people were provided with more than one test.
Repeating the RATS every two or three days was enough, he said.
Responding to a question based on reports of issues logging into My Covid Record and the reporting of RATS, he said there was an indication there was a 40 per cent positivity rate of RATS being recorded. The good thing was there were a lot of people testing and recording their positive result.
He said health authorities would start to look at the reported RATS positivity rate per DHB region.
He said from tomorrow parents and caregivers would be able to report their children's results online.
On the number of children being vaccinated, which hasn't increased a lot in the last weeks, he said we were still seeing steady progress.
Bloomfield said the Delta variant was last detected in mid-February via sequencing.
He said although we haven't got any hospital admissions with the Delta variant, we do know it's still out there in the community.
Today's cases in hospitals across the country are: Northland: 8; Auckland 158; Waitematā 154; Counties Manukau 195; Waikato: 71; BOP: 23; Lakes: 9; Tairāwhiti: 4, Hawke's Bay: 21; Taranaki: 10; MidCentral: 17; Whanganui: 3; Hutt Valley: 17; Capital & Coast: 46; Nelson Marlborough: 4; Canterbury: 18; Timaru: 2; Southern: 13.
The new community cases across New Zealand are Northland (689), Auckland (7,234), Waikato (2,016), Bay of Plenty (1,392), Lakes (632), Hawke's Bay (700), MidCentral (653), Whanganui (156), Taranaki (524), Tairāwhiti (353), Wairarapa (170), Capital and Coast (1,858), Hutt Valley (1,103), Nelson Marlborough (449), Canterbury (2,021), South Canterbury (109), Southern (918), West Coast (26) and Unknown (12).
Bloomfield said the rest of the country was still some way of from peaking and that areas would peak at different times.
He said they would be watching case numbers closely in the next few days, and should get an indication of whether Auckland has reached its peak number of cases.
About 40 per cent of people turning up to emergency departments were testing positive for Covid-19, but again some would be seeking care for the virus and others for separate reasons.
Bloomfield said they were working to compile data on whether people were going to hospital because of how ill they were from Covid-19 or if they had simply tested positive while admitted.
Meanwhile, only four out of 32 MIQ facilities would stay in the network.
The end of managed isolation hotels means more than 600 Defence Force personnel involved will be able to return to their units.
Rydges in downtown Auckland will be the first hotel to leave the network, on April 30.
"MIQ meant that not everyone could come home when they wanted to. But it also meant that Covid-19 could not come in when it wanted to, either," said Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins.
Hipkins said it had served us "incredibly well" and he acknowledged all those who had worked in managed isolation and quarantine facilities around the country.
Yesterday it was announced that the isolation period for Covid-19 cases and their household contacts would be slashed from 10 to seven days from midnight on Friday.
Hipkins said as case numbers increased, larger numbers of people needed to isolate and the reduced isolation time was because of high case numbers and wider impacts.
"There needs to be a balance between effectively controlling the outbreak and the flow-on effect for business and essential goods and services such as transport and food supply."
** An earlier version of this story reported there were 845 people in hospital. That was based on information released by the Ministry of Health which it has now said was incorrect due to "data issues".
The winning tickets were sold in Auckland and on MyLotto to a Waikato player.