Another 16 people with Covid-19 have died and there are 3805 new community cases of the virus, the Ministry of Health says.
File photo. Photo: RNZ
The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers is continuing to fall, at 3876 today, compared to 4581 last Friday.
In a statement, the ministry said there were 466 people in hospital, with eight of them in intensive care or a high dependency unit.
One was from Northland, two were from Bay of Plenty, one was from Tairawhiti, two were from Taranaki, one was from Whanganui, two were from Wellington region, two were from Canterbury, one was from West Coast, three were from South Canterbury, one was from Southern.
The 16 people with Covid-19 whose deaths are reported today include one person in their 60s, two in their 70s, 10 in their 80s and three aged over 90. Four were women and 12 were men.
One was from Northland, two were from Bay of Plenty, one was from Tairawhiti, two were from Taranaki, one was from Whanganui, two were from Wellington region, two were from Canterbury, one was from West Coast, three were from South Canterbury, one was from Southern.
A total of 1815 deaths have now been confirmed as attributable to Covid-19.
Yesterday the ministry reported 16 people with Covid-19 had died and there were 473 people in hospital, compared to 533 on Wednesday.
Deputy-Director General and Public Health Agency head Dr Andrew Old told media earlier this week that number of people in hospitals was also declining, suggesting that hospitalisations may have peaked.
However epidemiologist Rod Jackson has warned that with new variants of Covid 19 popping up regularly, the country can't rule out more lockdowns and that we should be better prepared.
There has now been a total of 1,694,335 cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand.