There are 3297 new Covid-19 community cases in New Zealand on Wednesday, the Ministry of Health has announced.
The cases are in Northland (40), Auckland (1729), Waikato (297), Bay of Plenty (157), Lakes (54), Hawke's Bay (18), MidCentral (56), Whanganui (5), Taranaki (30), Tairāwhiti (16), Wairarapa (16), Capital and Coast (123), Hutt Valley (28), Nelson Marlborough (85), Canterbury (176), South Canterbury (7), Southern (455) and West Coast (3).
There are 179 people in hospital with the virus. One of those is in intensive care or a high dependency unit.
The number is up from 143 people in hospital with the virus on Tuesday.
The average age of Covid-19 patients is 51.
Nineteen are unvaccinated or not eligible, four are partially immunised, 64 are fully vaccinated and the vaccination status of 15 is unknown.
"A high rate of booster doses across the country will lower the number of people becoming severely ill from Omicron and ensure there is capacity in our health system for anyone who needs care," the ministry said in a statement.
"We're asking everyone who has had a booster to remind their friends and whānau to do the same – people are eligible for a booster dose if it has been more than three months since their second dose."
The ministry said people in Wellington and at the top of the South were leading the charge in getting their booster shots.
So far, 75 per cent of eligible people from the both Capital and Coast and Nelson-Marlborough DHBs having now had their booster.
"Collectively, this represents almost a quarter of a million people across both regions who have stepped up in recent weeks, contributing to more than 2.2 million New Zealanders who have played their part in getting their booster so far."
There were 25,367 booster doses administered in New Zealand on Tuesday.
In total, now 4.01 million first doses, 3.95 million second doses, 32,757 third primary doses, 2.22 million booster doses, 230,960 paediatric first doses and 2081 paediatric second doses have been administered throughout the country.
Meanwhile, the ministry continued to urge people who don’t need to be tested for Covid-19 to not show up at testing sites.
"With Covid-19 spreading rapidly, a significant number of concerned people who don't need a test are going to get a test are continuing to turn up – those are people who don’t have any Covid-19 symptoms and are not a contact of a case.
"The Ministry of Health continues to stress the importance of the right people being tested for the right reasons.
"People should only get tested if they have cold or flu symptoms, have been identified as a close contact of a case, or have been asked to get tested by a health official."
On Tuesday, 27,550 tests for Covid-19 were processed – which had a 12.2 per cent positivity rate.
However, the ministry noted on Wednesday that some positive cases had been assigned to the wrong regions.
"In recent days, the number of cases reported for Southern DHB has been lower than the true number because a large number of people have tested positive who have National Health Numbers linked to a home address outside of the Southern DHB region – these cases have been included in other regions' case counts," the ministry explained.
"A large number of people who returned a positive result in the Southern region yesterday who have addresses outside of the region are included in Southern's case count today after work by health officials to reclassify the cases. This explains why there is a larger increase in Southern's cases reported today compared with previous days."
But the ministry added that a case undercount anywhere in the country would not significantly impact the assessment of the outbreak, public health decision-making or public health advice.
"Based on overseas experiences, the Ministry of Health has been expecting the true number of community cases to be higher than the cases reported each day and this has been factored into our Omicron planning," the ministry said.
It comes as there were eight new border cases to report on Wednesday. Their travel history is yet to be determined.
This brings the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in New Zealand since the pandemic began to 38,951.
There are currently 21,648 active cases in the community.
On Tuesday, there were 2846 cases in New Zealand.
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