There have been 19,542 new cases of Covid-19 in the community and 24 more deaths reported today.
File image. Photo: AFP
The Ministry said eight people died with Covid-19 yesterday, while another 16 people died in the past three weeks.
"Local public health authorities have notified these deaths to the Ministry in the past 24 hours as part of changes to the reporting of deaths announced last week. Delays to reporting can be associated with people dying with, rather than of Covid-19, and Covid being discovered after they have died."
A person in their 40s was one of the people with Covid-19 whose death was reported today, while another person was in their 50s. The others include four in their 60s, three in their 70s, eight in their 80s and six in their 90s.
Eleven were women and twelve were men. The Ministry said the average age was 79 and this has been increasing over the last week. Eight of the 24 deaths reported today were people who died at aged residential care facilities.
The total number of deaths of people with Covid-19 is now 141.
The rolling seven-day average of deaths over the past seven days is seven, up from four yesterday.
The Ministry said the trend of increasing numbers of deaths was sadly not unexpected.
"As has occurred with Omicron overseas, while Covid-19 cases are usually seen in higher numbers among younger people early in the outbreak, over time the more severe and fatal consequences of the virus fall disproportionately on our older and more vulnerable populations."
There are 971 people in hospital, 21 of whom are in ICU. The average age of the people with Covid-19 in hospital is 57.
Today's new community cases include 5318 cases in Auckland, down from 6085 yesterday. The rest of today's cases were in the Northland (661), Waikato (1834), Bay of Plenty (1347), Lakes (584), Hawke's Bay (1049), MidCentral (802), Whanganui (231), Taranaki (663), Tairāwhiti (370), Wairarapa (208), Capital and Coast (1308), Hutt Valley (780), Nelson Marlborough (487), Canterbury (2385), South Canterbury (184), Southern (1203) and West Coast (30) DHBs.
There were also 17 new cases identified at the border.
Yesterday there were 21,616 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the community and two more deaths. There were 960 people in hospital.
There have now been 398,329 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand.
There were 5484 booster doses given yesterday, as well as 331 first doses; 576 second doses; 33 third primary doses; 381 paediatric first doses and 3889 paediatric second doses.
