There are 15,918 new Covid-19 cases in the community in New Zealand, the Ministry of Health has announced on Wednesday.
The numbers were reported over the last 24 hours.
There are 817 people in hospital with the virus, including 24 in an intensive care or high dependency unit.
This is a fall on Tuesday's hospitalisations of 842, with two less people in ICU compared with 24 hours ago.
The Covid-19 Response Minister made the announcement during a press conference on March 30. (Source: 1News)
The ministry also announced 14 Covid-related deaths. They include people who have died over the past six days, but were only recently notified to the ministry.
The ministry explained delays to reporting can be associated with people dying with, rather than of the virus, and Covid-19 being discovered after they have died.
Of the 14 people who have died, four each were from the Auckland region and Waikato, while one each were from the Lakes DHB area, Wellington region, Nelson Marlborough, Canterbury, South Canterbury and the Southern DHB area.
Five people were in their 70s, six were in their 80s and three in their 90s.
Thirteen were men and one was a woman.
"Our thoughts and condolences are with their whānau and friends at this sad time. Out of respect, we will be making no further comment."
The latest deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths to 317.
The seven-day rolling average of deaths remains at 15.
Wednesday's positive cases, detected through rapid antigen tests (RATs) and PCR tests, are located in Northland (634), Auckland (2691), Waikato (1508), Bay of Plenty (987), Lakes (438), Hawke’s Bay (892), MidCentral (851), Whanganui (399), Taranaki (649), Tairāwhiti (183), Wairarapa (152), Capital and Coast (1054), Hutt Valley (599), Nelson Marlborough (605), Canterbury (2535), South Canterbury (293), Southern (1386) and West Coast (55).
The location of seven cases is unknown.
The ministry said 15,582 of Wednesday's cases were detected through RATs and 336 through PCR tests. A total of 3259 PCR tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, while 30,641 RAT results were reported.
The number of active community cases is 104,769. They were identified in the past seven days but have not yet been classified as recovered.
The seven-day rolling average of community cases is 14,969, a fall from 15,565 on Tuesday.
The ministry said it is "encouraging" case numbers are continuing to decline.
"This supports the trend we are seeing across the seven-day rolling average. Today''s seven-day rolling average is 14,969; this compares with the seven-day rolling average of cases as at last Wednesday of 17,111."
There are also 48 new cases at the border, the ministry announced on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, 17,148 community cases were announced.
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