There are 19,452 new Covid-19 cases in the community in New Zealand on Wednesday, the Ministry of Health has announced.
There are 971 people in hospital with the virus, including 21 in an intensive care or high dependency unit.
This is an increase on Tuesday's 960 hospitalisations. It is a slight decrease on Tuesday's ICU numbers of 22.
The ministry also announced 24 Covid-related deaths. Eight people with Covid-19 had died on Tuesday and an additional 16 in the past three weeks.
The ministry said eight people among the 24 deaths reported on Wednesday had died at aged residential care facilities.
Three had died in Northland, seven each in Auckland and Waikato, two each in the Bay of Plenty, MidCentral and Wairarapa.
One person was in their 40s, one in their 50s, four in their 60s, three in their 70s, eight in their 80s and six in their 90s.
Eleven were women and 12 were men.
The deaths had been notified to the ministry by local public health authorities as part of changes to the reporting of deaths announced last week.
"Delays to reporting can be associated with people dying with, rather than of Covid-19, and Covid being discovered after they have died," the ministry said.
It takes the total number of publicly reported deaths to 141.
"At this point in the outbreak, we are seeing increasing numbers of people dying with Omicron. Sadly, this trend is not unexpected, and our thoughts are with the families of these people.
"As has occurred with Omicron overseas, while Covid-19 cases are usually seen in higher numbers among younger people early in the outbreak, over time the more severe and fatal consequences of the virus fall disproportionately on our older and more vulnerable populations."
Wednesday's 19,542 positive cases, detected through rapid antigen tests (RATs) and PCR tests, are located in Northland (661), Auckland (5318), Waikato (1834), Bay of Plenty (1347), Lakes (584), Hawke’s Bay (1049), MidCentral (802), Whanganui (231), Taranaki (663), Tairāwhiti (370), Wairarapa (208), Capital and Coast (1308), Hutt Valley (780), Nelson Marlborough (487), Canterbury (2385), South Canterbury (184), Southern (1203) and West Coast (30).
The locations of seven cases is unknown.
The ministry said 18,930 of Wednesday's figures were detected through RATs and 522 through PCR tests. A total of 5241 PCR tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, while 26,380 RATs were taken.
The number of active community cases is 197,464. They were identified in the past 10 days but have not yet been classified as recovered.
Thirty-five new cases at the border were also announced on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, 21,616 community cases were recorded in New Zealand.
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