More than 3000 new Covid cases, five deaths

There were 3235 new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand yesterday.

The Ministry of Health reported a further five Covid-related deaths.

There were 356 people in hospital with the virus, including five in intensive care.

The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers yesterday was 991.

Last Sunday it was 5919. Yesterday’s reported deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths with Covid-19 to 1406 and the seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 12.

Of the deaths reported yesterday, two were from the Auckland region, one was from Hawke’s Bay, one was from Nelson-marlborough and one was from Canterbury.

Two people were in their 60s and three people were aged over 90. Of these people, two were women and three were men.

Yesterday’s new cases were detected in Northland (68), Auckland (991), Waikato (192), Bay of Plenty (100), Lakes (58), Hawke’s Bay (92), Midcentral (98), Whanganui (41), Taranaki (88), Taira¯whiti (18), Wairarapa (35), Capital and Coast (302), Hutt Valley (151), Nelson Marlborough (152), Canterbury (503), South Canterbury (40), Southern (282) and West Coast (19).

Five were listed as unknown. Yesterday’s hospitalisations were in Northland: 5; Waitemata¯: 41; Counties Manukau: 41; Auckland: 61; Waikato: 23; Bay of Plenty: 19; Lakes: 4; Taira¯whiti: 3; Hawke’s Bay: 7; Taranaki: 10; Whanganui: 4; Midcentral: 29; Wairarapa: 0; Hutt Valley: 21; Capital and Coast: 19; Nelson Marlborough: 7; Canterbury: 35; South Canterbury: 3; Southern: 24.

The average age of current hospitalisations is 59.

There were 42 cases detected at the border.

There are 34,922 active cases. The country has so far had 1,266,659 cases overall.

There were 2443 PCR tests and 6834 RATS reported in the last 24 hours.

The data release comes as nursing unions warned on Saturday a severe shortage across the country was becoming a “crisis”.

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation said the country’s “horrendous” nursing shortage was leaving those in the sector burnt-out and worried they were being stretched too thinly to keep patients safe.