Covid 19 Omicron outbreak: There are 1,480 new cases in the Lakes and Bay of Plenty district health board areas

A Rapid Antigen Test (RAT). Photo / NZME A_280222SPLRAT4

There are 34 people with Covid-19 in hospital in the Bay of Plenty District Health Board area and 13 in the Lakes health board area today.

It comes as 1,023 new cases in the Bay of Plenty DHB area and 457 in the Lakes DHB area were reported by the Ministry of Health.

These include both PCR and RATs tests.

There are 15,540 new community cases in New Zealand today with 952 people in hospital with the virus.

There have are two new Covid-19 related deaths, one in Waikato, and one in Canterbury.

Both people were women aged over 70 years.

The total number of publicly reported Covid-19 related deaths to date is 115.

The ministry is urging everyone with symptoms to get tested and, if using a RAT test, to record whether it is positive or negative on My Covid Record.

Toi Te Ora-Public Health today reported 596 new cases in Tauranga City, 306 in Rotorua District, 171 in Western Bay of Plenty, 171 in Whakatāne District, 45 in Kawerau, 40 in Ōpōtiki and 151 in Taupō.

There are 12,444 active cases in the Bay of Plenty DHB area and 5,151 in Lakes.

Tourists coming back

Later this week Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is expected to make a border announcement on the date for tourists to come to New Zealand being bought forward.

Under the government's initial plan, tourists would be able to return in the final phase by October.

It is now expected to be even earlier than the middle of the year.

Over the weekend, working holiday visa holders started to return and they were part of the workforce that would help support tourists, Ardern said.

Meanwhile, experts are increasingly sounding the alarm about Long Covid - the catch-all term for a range of symptoms that can arise weeks or months after a person is infected with the virus.

Those symptoms can affect even people whose original illness was mild. While it's too early to know whether Omicron's Long Covid tail will be similar to previous strains of the virus, medical experts say infections should not be treated as trivial.

People should still avoid getting infected if possible and take time to recover if they do get sick.

Schools hit hard

Almost three-quarters of schools and early learning centres across the country are grappling with Covid-19 cases, according to the latest update from the Ministry of Health.

The proportion is even higher in Auckland, where 86 per cent of schools are handling cases.

Primary schools are the worst hit, with 646 across the country dealing with Covid-19 cases, compared with 173 secondary schools and 57 intermediate schools.

Just over 470 early learning centres have also been hit by Covid-19.

"Schools/kura and early learning services (ELS) have layers of preventative measures in place to protect teachers/support staff , students and children. Public health advice has remained consistent throughout the Covid-19 response that school/kura environments are a lower risk for transmission of Covid-19.

"We know that the more layers of protection in place (eg, good hygiene practices, handwashing, ventilation, cleaning and disinfecting high touch areas regularly etc.), the harder it is for the virus to be transmitted", Sean Teddy, Hautū of Operations and Integration/Te Pae Aronui at the Ministry of Education said.

More than 46,000 Covid-19 cases have been linked to schools in the past 10 days, the Ministry of Education said.