A Covid-19 modeller is predicting parts of New Zealand, outside Auckland, will start to see peak cases of the virus soon.
The University of Canterbury's Michael Plank this morning told Breakfast that it is "pretty clear" cases are trending down in Auckland.
There were 14,494 new community cases reported on Sunday, of which 4509 were in Auckland.
However, Plank added: "Nationally, I think we're pretty close to a peak."
He said the rest of the country was lagging behind Auckland, but the peak may not be as high elsewhere.
"We've certainly seen other parts of the country lag behind Auckland and it remains to be seen exactly how high other areas will peak compared to Auckland.
"I think probably a lot of places will peak a bit lower than Auckland, simply because Auckland, it's our biggest city, we've got large populations that are sort of densely packed with large, multi-generational households - these are just factors that make it easier to spread.
"So probably more rural areas or areas with smaller towns will likely to be peaking at a lower level would be my estimate."
Plank said we'll start to see peaks over parts of the country during the week ahead.
As for hospitalisations, he said they'll be a slower decline than case numbers.
As of Sunday, there were 896 people with Covid-19 in hospital, with 18 in ICU or HDU.
"The hospitalisations are likely to increase for a bit longer. We've hit peak cases but because of that lag we could see hospitalisations continue to rise for another week or so," Plank said.
"Once we get into that downward phase I think numbers will drop initially but then will start to decline gradually I think. I think they'll come down more slowly than they went up."
He pointed to Queensland, Australia as the closest comparison to New Zealand.
"At a peak they had around about 1000 people in hospital, similar to what we're expecting here, but a couple of months later those numbers have come down but they're still at about 250 so still a significant number of people in hospital two months after the peak."
But Plank added that New Zealand's high rates of vaccinations was having an impact, especially in comparison to overseas.
"There's no doubt at all that if we didn't have these really good vaccination rates that we have we would be in a whole lot more trouble now, and the booster as well. The booster is absolutely critical.
"And you only have to look at Hong Kong - Hong Kong have very, very similar case trajectory to New Zealand but they have hundreds of deaths per day now and it's because they haven't got that high vaccination coverage and high booster coverage, particularly in that older age group so it's making a massive difference here in New Zealand."
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