There are 23,183 new Covid-19 community cases in New Zealand on Thursday, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has announced.
The positive cases, detected through rapid antigen tests (RAT) and PCR tests, are located in Northland (520), Auckland (13,237), Waikato (1870), Bay of Plenty (1332), Lakes (537), Hawke’s Bay (315), MidCentral (381), Whanganui (79), Taranaki (289), Tairāwhiti (134), Wairarapa (94), Capital and Coast (1487), Hutt Valley (642), Nelson Marlborough (271), Canterbury (1294), South Canterbury (53), Southern (615) and West Coast (16).
The location of 17 of the cases is unknown.
The ministry said 19,805 of Thursday's cases were detected through RAT and 3378 through PCR tests. A total of 20,346 PCR tests were carried out in the last 24 hours.
The number of active community cases is 146,527. They were identified in the past 21 days but have not yet been classified as recovered.
The Ministry of Health said a person in a Bay of Plenty rest home had died. They had died of an unrelated medical condition while receiving palliative care and had tested positive for Covid-19.
A total of 503 people are in hospital with the virus, including seven in an intensive care or high dependency unit.
Bloomfield said Covid-19 cases continue to rise rapidly. Between February 21 and 27, he said just over 1 per cent of the population were active cases.
A large proportion of the country's cases are under aged 30.
Of Thursday's cases, 54 per cent are under 30, while 14 per cent are over 50.
Bloomfield said the opposite pattern was being seen for those in hospital.
The Director-General of Health says there are 503 people in hospital, with seven in intensive care. (Source: 1News)
He said of the 345 people in hospital with the virus in the northern region, 21 per cent were under 30, while 60 per cent were over 50.
The country's hospitalisation rate was being calculated by the number of people in hospital over the number of current cases over the last 21 days.
Bloomfield said it was 3.5 per thousand but acknowledged, as seen overseas, there is a lag of a week to 10 days, so this would increase.
As of 2pm on Wednesday, Bloomfield said 11 per cent of people in hospital in the Auckland region were there with Covid-19, so 1 in 10. This included those in ED.
The hospitalisation rate for those 12 and over who had received a booster dose was a fifth of the rate for those who had not been vaccinated.
Bloomfield said nearly 18,000 booster doses were administered on Wednesday. He said 938,000 people had still not received a booster dose and encouraged them to do so if they were eligible. This equated to 20 per cent of those eligible, he added.
However, vaccinations for 5-11 year olds was increasing, with 51 per cent having received a first dose.
There were also 11 probable cases detected at the border on Thursday.
On Wednesday, 22,152 community cases were announced.
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