9830 new community cases of Covid-19
There are 9830 new community Covid-19 cases, as officials report an additional 23 deaths over the past six days.
There are 473 people in hospital with the virus – 17 of whom are in an intensive care or high dependency care unit, the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday afternoon.
The seven-day rolling average of case numbers is 7884 – similar to last Wednesday, when it was 7834, the ministry said in its statement.
This is the fifth day in a row that the seven-day rolling average case number has been higher than the week before.
Meanwhile, the number of Covid-related hospital admissions has dropped, and is at the lowest it has been since March 2.
The 23 deaths reported on Wednesday include those who have died over the past six days, apart from one death on April 3.
The ministry said the increase in deaths – taking the number of publicly reported deaths with Covid-19 to 710 – followed a similar pattern often seen after weekends or public holidays. The average age of those in hospital in the Northern region (Northland and Auckland) was 60.
Of those in hospitals in the Northern region (whose vaccination status is known, and who are not in emergency departments), 46 patients were unvaccinated or ineligible. Six were partially vaccinated, 76 had received two doses of the vaccine and 126 had been boosted.
The vaccination status of a further seven cases was unknown, the ministry said.
It’s expected that most people in hospital with Covid-19 would be vaccinated.
This is because more than 95% of the eligible population aged 12 and over has received two doses. This can lead to vaccinated people being over-represented in hospitalisation data.
To date, 71.1% of those eligible to receive their booster have done so.
On Wednesday, New Zealand marked more than 900,000 confirmed cases since the Covid-19 pandemic began, with 903,451 to date.
Officials also reported an additional 74 cases at the border.