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20,087 new Covid cases on Wednesday, 11 deaths reported

March 23, 2022

Covid-19 vaccination centre in The Cloud, Auckland. (Source: 1News)

There are 20,087 new Covid-19 cases in the community in New Zealand on Wednesday, the Ministry of Health has announced.

There are 960 people in hospital with the virus, including 31 in an intensive care or high dependency unit.

This is an fall on Tuesday's hospitalisations of 1016, with six more people in ICU compared with 24 hours ago.

The ministry also announced 11 Covid-related deaths.

Of the 11 people who have died, two were from Northland, five were from Auckland, one was from Bay of Plenty and three were from the Wellington region.

One person was in their 30s, one in their 60s, one in their 70s, four were in their 80s and four in their 90s.

Six were men and five were women.

"This is a very sad time for whānau and friends and our thoughts and condolences are with them at this time. Out of respect, we will be making no further comment," the ministry said.

Wednesday's deaths take the total number of publicly reported Covid-related deaths to 210.

The seven-day rolling average of reported deaths has fallen to nine.

Wednesday’s 20,087 positive cases, detected through rapid antigen tests (RATs) and PCR tests, are located in Northland (727), Auckland (4122), Waikato (1726), Bay of Plenty (1290), Lakes (505), Hawke’s Bay (1064), MidCentral (919), Whanganui (388), Taranaki (679), Tairāwhiti (339), Wairarapa (276), Capital and Coast (1259), Hutt Valley (720), Nelson Marlborough (584), Canterbury (3468), South Canterbury (319), Southern (1631) and West Coast (56).

The location of 15 cases is unknown.

The ministry said 19,649 of Wednesday's figures were detected through RATs and 438 through PCR tests. A total of 3483 PCR tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, while 40,294 RAT results were reported.

The number of active community cases is 119,766. They were identified in the past seven days but have not yet been classified as recovered.

The ministry said the seven-day rolling average of cases is 17,111, down from 17,020 on Monday.

There are also 43 new cases at the border on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, 20,907 community cases were recorded in New Zealand.

New Zealand Covid-19

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