There are 9495 new Covid-19 community cases in New Zealand, the Ministry of Health has announced on Wednesday.
The numbers were reported over the last 24 hours.
There are 551 people in hospital with the virus, including 27 in an intensive care or high dependency unit.
This is a fall on Tuesday's hospitalisations of 622, but with four more people in ICU compared with 24 hours ago.
There are 551 people in hospital in New Zealand with the virus, on April 13. (Source: 1News)
The ministry also announced 15 Covid-related deaths. The deaths had occurred over the past eight days, including 11 in the past two days, the ministry said.
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 15 people who have died, four were from the Auckland region, three were from Nelson Marlborough, two each were from the MidCentral DHB area and Canterbury, and one each were from Northland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and the Lakes DHB area.
One person was aged in their 40s, two were in their 50s, two were in their 60s, four were in their 70s, five were in their 80s, and one person was over 90.
Seven were men and eight were women.
"This is a very sad time for whānau and friends and our thoughts are with them. Out of respect, we will be making no further comment," the ministry said.
The latest deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths to 531.
The seven-day rolling average of deaths remains at 13.
Wednesday's positive cases, detected through rapid antigen tests (RATs) and PCR tests, are located in Northland (455), Auckland (1828), Waikato (718), Bay of Plenty (421), Lakes (176), Hawke's Bay (355), MidCentral (461), Whanganui (181), Taranaki (288), Tairāwhiti (84), Wairarapa (109), Capital and Coast (607), Hutt Valley (375), Nelson Marlborough (307), Canterbury (1670), South Canterbury (208), Southern (1148) and West Coast (94).
The location of 10 cases is unknown.
The ministry said 9276 of Wednesday's cases were detected through RATs and 219 through PCR tests. A total of 2814 PCR tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, while 15,547 RAT results were reported.
The number of active community cases is 64,997. 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 9288, down from 9731 on Tuesday.
"The seven-day rolling average of case numbers continues to decline, with today's seven-day rolling average at 9288 - last Wednesday it was 12,307," the ministry said.
"The number of reported community cases is expected to continue to fluctuate day to day but the overall trend remains an overall reduction in reported cases."
There are also 47 new cases of Covid-19 at the border, the ministry announced on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, 11,063 community cases were announced.
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