Auckland has passed the Covid peak as a decline in cases continue, however the rest of New Zealand is yet to reach this point.
Northern Region Health Coordination Centre chief clinical officer Dr Andrew Old said last week he "overused the expression cautiously optimistic," but said that’s been replaced with "a sense of relief" that the city where the Omicron outbreak began is now seeing less daily cases.
"I think we now have enough data for Auckland, and as I said last week we are still seeing good numbers of tests being registered and a number of people across the district to be reasonably confident that it is a true reduction," Old said at a media conference outside Middlemore Hospital on Thursday.
"So I think for Auckland I'm confident we are now coming off that peak, but obviously the rest of the country is a bit behind us," he said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern earlier in the day speculated that Auckland may have already reached its Omicron peak, but hospitalisations remain a concern.
Speaking at another media conference on Thursday she said: "What we’re waiting for is the lag that we see in our hospitalisations.
"Cases come first, hospitalisations follow. Sadly if someone is going to be so gravely unwell from Covid that they lose their life, that then comes thereafter."
Ardern said hospitalisations are being used as a guide to establish if the peak has been hit.
“A few more days will give us the confidence to know whether we have [hit the peak] in Auckland, but certainty there’s still a bit of time to run in the rest of the country,” she said.
Read more: How NZ's Covid restrictions might change after Omicron peak
On Wednesday there were 19,452 cases of Covid-19 recorded in the community, including 5318 in Auckland.
There were 971 people in hospital with the virus which was an increase from the previous days 960 hospitalisations.
Earlier this week Covid-19 modeller Michael Plank told TVNZ's Breakfast it is "pretty clear" cases are trending down in Auckland.
Michael Plank says the rest of the country is lagging behind Auckland and should see a lower peak than the city. (Source: Breakfast)
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," Plank told Breakfast.
Also this week, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the country may avoid a second peak due to the proliferation of the BA.2 Covid-19 sub-variant of Omicron.
The Director-General of Health said the spread of the BA.2 subvariant may "act in our favour". (Source: 1News)
He said its spread may help as the majority of cases were the sub-variant - which was 30% more transmissible - and made up between 75 and 80% of cases last month.
Bloomfield said other countries were having second peaks based around BA.2, and "there's a possibility we will miss that second big peak".
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