Focus Live: Bloomfield and McElnay give Covid-19 update
Covid-19 cases are continuing to drop but several thousand are still being reported every day while hospitalisations remain high as health staff treat hundreds of people with the virus in wards across the country.
University of Canterbury professor Michael Plank said the continual decline in case numbers was "good news"but the decline was gradual and there were still relatively high numbers of people in hospital.
"Roughly speaking, our case numbers and hospitalisations have been dropping about 15-20 per cent a week. That has been a fairly consistent pattern and I expect that trend will continue for the next couple of weeks."
There were 11,634 community cases yesterday, compared to 12,575 the day prior. A further 13 Covid-related deaths were reported, which included people who had died over the past 10 days.
The total number of reported deaths of people with Covid-19 is 456 and the seven day rolling average of reported deaths is 17.
Three people were in their 30s, two were in their 50s, two were in their 60s, four were in their 70s, one was in their 80 and one was aged over 90.
Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield said in the Northern region, which was metro Auckland and Northland, hospitalisations had peaked at 842 on March 29 and were down to 639 yesterday.
"They are on the decline but this a long tail of hospitalisations."
Plank said there would be a long tail in cases which meant the decline in cases would be slower than the increase of the cases to the peak.
Michael Plank is a professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and investigator at Te Pūnaha Matatini. Photo / Supplied
"Although it took us four weeks really to go from very low levels to a peak in cases, it's going to take longer than that to come down and at some point, it's likely to plateau at a relatively steady level."
Bloomfield said the weekly rate of cases had fallen over the past week from 22.5 cases per one thousand people last week to 18.5 cases per one thousand people this week.
When the Ministry of Health was doing a public health risk assessment that informed advice to the country stay in the red traffic light setting, a decision that was announced on Monday, case numbers in the Southern region were still increasing.
Bloomfield said case numbers were now declining in all regions and this would go into the next public health risk assessment next Monday ahead of the Government's next traffic light review on April 14.
At yesterday's outbreak press conference, Bloomfield wouldn't say when asked if he would be recommending the country move to orange.
That press conference was the last for a familiar face of the pandemic. Yesterday was Dr Caroline McElnay's last day as the Ministry of Health's director of public health.
Her departure follows the news Bloomfield will also leave his role at the end of July.
Public Health deputy director Dr Niki Stefanogiannis is also leaving today.
Director of public health Dr Caroline McElnay. Photo / Mark Mitchell
McElnay says she plans to travel overseas, including to visit friends and family in Ireland. She thanked "all of New Zealanders for getting us to where we are today on what has been a roller coaster of a ride."
Bloomfield acknowledged her "mammoth" effort towards the response and said she had been a rock for him.
"Dr McElnay has been instrumental and often the public face of the Ministry's response."
Meanwhile, new research by the Unite Against Covid-19 unit from March 11-18 shows that two years into the pandemic a large majority of New Zealanders were still complying with public health measures.
Bloomfield said 76 per cent of people said they stayed home if they felt unwell and the same percentage of people said they self-isolated when they had Covid-19 symptoms or were waiting for a test result.
