Covid 19 Omicron outbreak: 5630 cases today - and 17 Covid-related deaths including a child under 10

There are 5630 new community cases of coronavirus in NZ today - and 17 Covid-related deaths including a child under 10.

There are 362 people in hospital with the virus, including four in intensive care.

Of today's reported deaths, as well as the child aged under 10, another person was in their 50s, two were in their 60s, three were in their 70s, eight were in their 80s and two were aged over 90.

Nine were from the Auckland region, one from Waikato, one from the Bay of Plenty, two from Taranaki, one from Hawke's Bay, one from MidCentral, one from Canterbury and one from Southern.

Today's reported deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths with Covid-19 to 1432.

The seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 12.

Today's community cases are in Northland (167), Auckland (1663), Waikato (352), Bay of Plenty (182), Lakes (73), Hawke's Bay (179), MidCentral (176), Whanganui (58), Taranaki (173), Tairāwhiti (42), Wairarapa (57), Capital and Coast (493), Hutt Valley (224), Nelson Marlborough (240), Canterbury (941), South Canterbury (70), Southern (493), West Coast (45) and two are from parts unknown.

There are also 65 new imported cases.

Of today's cases, 1663 are in Auckland. Over the weekend the city's cases had dropped to under 1000.

The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers today is 4878 – last Tuesday it was 5983.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 1,276,604 cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand.

Over four million Kiwis have had at least one dose of the vaccine and 2,674,928 are boosted.

Yesterday, 29 first doses, 33 second doses, 23 third primary doses, 867 booster doses, 32 paediatric first doses and 250 paediatric second doses of the vaccine were administered.

In the past 24 hours, 3017 PCR tests and 12,810 rapid antigen tests have been processed.

There are 34,124 active cases of the virus in the community.

This follows the Ministry apologising for accidentally sending a text message to 6000 people telling them they have Covid-19 and need to isolate.

An uploading error on Friday afternoon and through into Saturday morning meant people were sent repeat text messages mistakenly telling them they had returned a positive Covid-19 test.

The message was sent to people who have tested positive for the virus in the past 10 days, meaning the text was a duplicate of advice they had already received.

The Covid-19 Response Minister's office said Ayesha Verrall was aware of the incident and has been assured by the ministry it was the result of a glitch.

The ministry's contact tracing team discovered the glitch early on Saturday morning and the error was fixed that day.

Text messages have been sent to all those affected to clarify the error, apologise and provide a phone number should people require further information or support, the ministry said.

While Covid case numbers are flattening, health experts are tracking a rise in flu cases at the same time that newly-arrived Covid-19 subvariants look set to begin a second Omicron wave – spelling an especially tough winter for hospitals.

There are early indications that Covid-19, influenza and other winter illnesses might align to cause a mass of infections in communities this winter, at a time hospitals are already under heavy strain.

Scientists are also watching three new Omicron subvariants – BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 - beginning to take off.

Covid-19 modellers hadn't been expecting the second wave until around late winter or early spring – but overseas experience and data trends suggest the country is in for another surge much sooner.

"If you look at ESR data on the frequency of the different variants, you can see quite clearly that they are on the increase," said Professor Michael Plank, of Covid-19 Modelling Aotearoa.

"It's not entirely clear which one is going to win out... but it looks at least like one of those variants is likely to take over – and that's likely to happen at some point in the next month or so."