Covid 19 Omicron outbreak: 7113 new Covid cases, 33 virus-related deaths, 738 in hospital

There are 7113 new community cases of Covid today as the number of people requiring hospital treatment continues to drop.

There are a further 33 virus-related deaths, the Ministry of Health said in today's update.

Of the 33 deaths four were from Auckland region, two were from Waikato, two were from Bay of Plenty, one was from Lakes, five were from Hawke's Bay, one was from Taranaki, two were from MidCentral, two were from Nelson Marlborough, five were from Canterbury, three were from South Canterbury, six were from Southern.

Two were aged in their 60s, five were in their 70s, 12 were in their 80s and 14 were aged over 90. Of these people, 15 were women and 18 were men.

There are now a total of 1563 deaths confirmed as attributable to the virus, either as the underlying cause of death or as a contributing factor.

The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers today is 6683 – last Tuesday it  was 8335.

There are 738 people being treated in hospital, including 15 cases in ICU.

The patients are at Northland 16; Waitematā: 77; Counties Manukau: 76; Auckland: 91; Waikato: 109; Bay of Plenty: 22; Lakes: 11; Hawke's Bay: 38; MidCentral: 44; Whanganui: 9; Taranaki: 21; Tairawhiti: 2; Wairarapa: 5; Capital & Coast/Hutt: 32; Nelson Marlborough: 19; Canterbury/West Coast: 117; South Canterbury: 16; Southern: 33.

The weekly rolling average of Covid hospitalisations is 787; this time last week the average was 772.

Of the 7113 community cases reported today, 275 people had recently returned from overseas.

There are currently 46,755 active Covid cases in New Zealand.

Yesterday there were 5312 new community cases and 759 people were in hospital with the virus - on Sunday there were 806.

There were 16 people in intensive care on Monday and the total death rate was at 1502.

The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers was 6990.

David Welch, Jemma Geoghegan and Michael Plank wrote last week about the steadily falling seven-day rolling average of new daily cases.

They're down from a peak of around 10,000 on July 15 to 6990 yesterday.

"The strength of hybrid immunity induced by high vaccination rates and the large and relatively recent BA.2 wave in Aotearoa likely means this BA.5 wave is smaller than it would have been otherwise," the experts wrote in The Conversation, a not-for-profit online publishing platform.

This comes as New Zealand has fully reopened to the world this week as the last of five Covid-19 border reopening phases happened at 11.59pm on Sunday.

Any change to visitor numbers arriving on the country's shores is expected to start as a trickle.

Meanwhile, health experts have called for parents and teachers to be vigilant and to watch for long covid symptoms in children.

Dr Anna Brooks is studying long Covid in adults and told RNZ that while children were less likely to get long Covid, it was definitely happening - but their symptoms may be different.

"We're hearing more about rashes or having a sore tummy, sore legs generally being sort of grumpy, behavioural issues, things that could be quite difficult to pick up."

That made it extremely difficult for young children to return to usual if it was not picked up by teachers or parents.

Brooks said there should be the same advice for children after having the virus - do not rush back into exercise.

"You can imagine in a small child it would be very difficult if they have brain fog, that cognitive impairment you know how on earth does a little child explain that, with little athletes we want to keep encouraging as much resting as possible."

Starship Hospital paediatrician Dr Greg Williams echoed that advice, but said they were seeing children recover from Covid-19 much quicker than adults.

"When you think of Covid and those of our community who are most affected by age and older age is a big risk factor also, the presence of other health conditions particularly affect older people."

Williams said if symptoms were lingering or new symptoms developed four to six weeks after having the virus, that was when an appointment needed to be made.