New Zealand / Covid 19

Covid-19 update: 15 further deaths and 5435 new community cases in NZ today

13:31 pm on 16 June 2022

Another 15 people have died with Covid-19 and there are 5435 new community cases, the Ministry of Health says.

Photo: 123RF

In a statement, the ministry said there were also 377 people with the virus in hospital, including six in intensive care of a high dependency unit. That compared with 368 hospitalisations, with seven in ICU or HDU yesterday.

Of the people whose deaths were reported today, three were from Northland, five from the Auckland region, one from Taranaki, one from MidCentral, one from the Wellington region, one from Canterbury, one from South Canterbury and two from Southern.

Two were in their 30s, one was in their 50s, one was in their 60, three were in their 70s, six were in their 80s, and two were aged over 90.

"Twelve of these deaths occurred this month and three deaths were in April and May 2022," the ministry said.

That brings the total number of publicly reported deaths with Covid-19 to 1374 and the seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 12.

The new community cases were in Northland (144), Auckland (1,602), Waikato (391), Bay of Plenty (171), Lakes (77), Hawke's Bay (155), MidCentral (219), Whanganui (75), Taranaki (159), Tairāwhiti (40), Wairarapa (47), Capital and Coast (463), Hutt Valley (220), Nelson Marlborough (226), Canterbury (819), South Canterbury (88), Southern (492), West Coast (44) and the location of three was unknown.

That brings the seven-day rolling average of community case numbers today to 5451 - last Thursday it was 6059.

There were also 107 new Covid-19 cases at the border.

Yesterday 11 deaths and 5554 new cases of Covid-19 were reported.

The ministry also said staff were working with regional colleagues to manage capacity and demand, prioritise urgent care and deliver as much planned health care as possible.

Covid-19 was circulating in the community and winter respiratory illnesses, like flu, were also prevalent so the health system was under increasing pressure, it said.

This morning the government announced pre-departure tests for travellers coming to New Zealand would be scrapped from Monday.

Travellers would still be required to self-test on day one and again on day five or six.