Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says Auckland's hospital cases have likely peaked, but he thinks the hospitalisation number will creep above 1000 as the rest of the country catches up.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Dr Bloomfield told Morning Report hospitalisation numbers reach their peak about two weeks after cases peak.
He said people sick with Covid-19 were needing longer hospital stays as those who are catching the virus are getting older on average.
"Many of the folk who are dying are older and certainly most of our people who are admitted in hospital, or at least just over a half are over 60 and so those people tend to be more vulnerable, [they] tend to have more conditions that require support so they will be in the hospital longer."
"Auckland hospitals are being hit really hard" - Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield
Bloomfield said two thirds of those in wards and intensive care were in the Auckland region, and he expected that number to slowly drop away as the peak of the outbreak passed.
"First of all, even though we seem to have a very low hospitalisation rate with this outbreak, so under 1 percent of cases in each DHB around the country end up in hospital, quite a lot lower than with the Delta cases ... the sheer numbers of cases that we're seeing out there does mean we'll end up with people in hospital."
He said even after case numbers peak, hospitalisation numbers were expected to take "quite a long time" to come down from their peak, following trends seen in overseas outbreaks such as those in Australia and Scotland.
Auckland DHB nurses being paid $500 per night to work an evening shift
Meanwhile, Auckland DHB nurses are being paid $500 per night to work an evening shift as the staffing crisis around the health sector continues under Omicron.
"We knew staffing was going to be a big challenge and the DHBs have prepared for this, certainly the Auckland hospitals are being hit really hard and that's because they've got quite a lot of staff off either unwell, or looking after family members or because they are household contacts."
Bloomfield said the incentives were an exception that would only continue for a short period but the "main thing is that people get the care they need".
Yesterday, there were nearly 1000 hospitalisations and 24 deaths, although 16 of those people died in the past three weeks and were only now added to the total.
Bloomfield said many of those who had died had pre-existing conditions.
"We are seeing more of that now and that's why yesterday we had what looked like quite a large number of deaths but two thirds of those, 16 of those, were deaths that had happened over the preceding three weeks and we had just strengthened our reporting protocol and picked those ones up."
Bloomfield said people were dying in a mix of places including at hospitals and at home but, reflecting pre-pandemic trends, most of the deaths were people in rest homes around the country.
With vaccine manufacturer Pfizer having recently applied for approval for a fourth vaccine dose for older people, Bloomfield said the Ministry of Health's scientific group were reviewing the possibility of rolling out another dose for older folk.
"They're the most vulnerable but we also see that the waning immunity from the vaccine that we see in that older age group happens more quickly."
With most seniors having been given their third vaccine dose in December or January, Bloomfield said they were aiming to run a fourth dose vaccination drive concurrently with the flu vaccination program which starts in April.