Covid surge: 27,000 cases in week
‘Subvariant soup’ takes hold as seven-day rolling average of cases rises to 3863 with average of four deaths
There were 27,076 new cases of Covid-19 in the community and 58 deaths in the past seven days announced yesterday. The Ministry of Health said the Covid-related deaths included a person in their 20s.
Of the others, two were in their 30s, two were in their 40s, two were in their 50s, eight were in their 60s, 18 were in their 70s, 16 were in their 80s and nine were aged over 90. Of these people, 24 were women and 34 were men.
As of midnight on Sunday, 328 people were in hospital with the virus, including 10 in intensive care.
The ministry said 6547 cases reported in the past seven days were reinfections.
The latest deaths are spread across the country, with three from Northland, 19 from Auckland region, six from Waikato, two from Bay of Plenty, one from Lakes, one from Tairawhiti, one from Hawke’s Bay, two from Midcentral, one from Whanganui, five were from Wellington region, one was from Nelson Marlborough, nine were from Canterbury, two were from South Canterbury, four were from Southern.
The seven-day rolling average of cases had increased to 3863 while the seven-day rolling average of deaths attributed to Covid was four.
Covid-19 cases are continuing to increase and hundreds remain in hospital with the virus as this third Omicron wave, dubbed a “subvariant soup”, takes hold.
Last Monday, the ministry reported 24,068 new cases for the
seven days prior.
There was also a further 40 deaths reported — one of which was a child under the age of 10.
By last Sunday, there were 344 people in hospital with the virus.
Activist group Zero Covid NZ reported that there were 2580 new cases on Sunday, up from 2257 on the same day last week.
This third wave may push daily cases over 11,000 this summer.
“The subvariant landscape is growing to be more complex than ever— it’s an ever-evolving, hydra-like menace
with so many forms and faces that scientists are battling to keep up with it, says NZ Herald science reporter Jamie Morton.
When Omicron burst through our borders last summer it was a simpler beast – and Kiwis infected in that first major wave most likely would have caught the virus in one of two varieties.
That was BA.1 — its “original” type, thought to have evolved on a distinct track spanning back to the pandemic’s opening months — and BA.2, its more agile mark two.
By travelling to every corner of the globe, these earliest editions of Omicron have gone on to spawn several hundred monitored lineages, with fresh ones being catalogued each week. This is hardly surprising to scientists who study viruses like Sars-cov-2.
In simple terms, the longer and more easily a virus is able to jump between us, the quicker it learns how to infect us.
Over June and July, BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants drove a flood of infections that pushed New Zealand’s reported daily cases past 10,000.
Some have managed to carve out larger slices of our infection pie than others: namely BA.2.75, better known as Centaurus.
Around the time New Zealand’s winter wave was building, scientists detected our first cases of the secondgeneration subvariant of BA.2, BA.2.75, which packed eight extra mutations in its spike protein.
Meanwhile, a Centaurus lineage with an additional three spike protein mutations, and dubbed BR.2.1, has been on the rise in New South Wales and was circulating at low levels here.
Also showing good potential to spread was BA.2 descendant BN.1,
The subvariant
landscape is growing to be more complex than ever.
Science reporter Jame Morton
recorded in more than 30 countries, and behind a growing proportion of US cases.
That these various strains could spread and power waves together explained why health officials were warning daily cases could peak at more than 11,000 over summer.
“If you’ve got one variant with a 10 per cent growth advantage over BA.5, and something else with the same edge, then you’d expect them both to co-circulate,” modeller Dr David Welch said.