Another 16 people with Covid-19 have died, 473 are in hospital and there are 4540 new community cases, the Ministry of Health says.
Visualization Of The Covid-19 Virus (Corona) Photo: 123rf.com
In its latest daily update, the ministry said of the 16 people whose deaths it was reporting today: one was from Northland, four were from Auckland region, one was from Bay of Plenty, one was from Lakes, two were from Hawke's Bay, one was from Taranaki, four were from Wellington region and two were from Canterbury.
Three were in their 60s, three were in their 70s, seven were in their 80s and three were aged over 90. Of these people, eight were women and eight were men.
The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers today was 3928 - last Thursday, it was 4750.
The seven-day rolling average of hospitalisations was 527 - last Thursday, it was 617.
There were now a total of 1807 deaths confirmed as attributable to Covid-19, either as the underlying cause of death or as a contributing factor. The seven-day rolling average increase in total deaths attributable to Covid-19 was now 12, the ministry said.
Of the 473 hospital cases, 10 were in intensive care or a high dependency unit. This compared with 496 people in hospital, 13 of them in a high dependency unit announced at the update yesterday.
Another 16 people with Covid-19 had died yesterday and there were 4489 new community cases.
Deputy-Director General and Public Health Agency head Dr Andrew Old told a media briefing yesterday that modelling from Covid Modelling Aotearoa showed New Zealand was continuing to track at the lower end of what was expected in terms of a second wave this winter.
Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand interim national medical director Dr Pete Watson said the recent drop in Covid-19 cases was an encouraging trend.
It's been a year since the country's longest Covid-19 lockdown and epidemiologist Rod Jackson has warned that the country can't rule out more lockdowns.
Jackson, from Auckland University, said we have to be better prepared for any future lockdowns, with new variants of Covid 19 popping up regularly.
NZers should be prepared for future lockdowns - Jackson