There are 10,424 new Covid-19 community cases in New Zealand on Tuesday, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has announced.
The numbers were reported over the last 24 hours.
There are 788 people in hospital with the virus, nine fewer than Monday.
Twenty people are in an intensive care or high dependency unit, the same number as 24 hours ago.
READ MORE: Covid subvariant BA.2.75 found in NZ community for first time
The average age of people in hospital remains at 64.
Twenty-one more people with the virus have died. The Ministry of Health said they include one death from April and one from June.
Ashley Bloomfield said there were 21 new deaths of people with Covid-19 to report on Tuesday. (Source: 1News)
The seven-day rolling average of cases is 9528, down on 9554 a week ago, and down on 9689 24 hours ago.
The seven-day rolling average of those in hospital is 764, up from 613 a week ago, and up on 753 24 hours ago.
The seven-day rolling average of deaths remains at 23. The latest deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths of people with Covid-19 to 1870.
Bloomfield gave the new Covid-19 data at a press conference in Wellington.
He said rapidly increasing case rates observed in recent weeks does seem to have slowed in the last week or so.
"It's encouraging, but at this point we're treating that with caution.
"At this stage we are still expecting further increases in cases and hospitalisations according to the modelling our team has done."
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Bloomfield said in the last week there had been about a 4.5% increase in case rates over the previous week. This compared to 33% in the week prior.
He said this meant the rate had slowed.
The hospitalisation rate for the week ending July 17 increased by 28%, which Bloomfield remarked is "quite a significant increase".
He said nearly one-in-20 patients admitted to hospital at the moment are returning positive Covid-19 test results.
Bloomfield went on to say compared to the March-April wave of Omicron, case rates are now higher in the older population, particularly those over 65.
For the week ending July 17, he said there had been a significant increase in the number of cases in aged residential care. There were 793 cases compared with 729 the week prior.
However, this was "quite a big slow" on increases in the previous week.
Bloomfield remarked the Omicron subvariant of BA.5 was driving the current surge in cases.
BA.2.75 in Auckland community
Bloomfield also announced two cases of the Omicron subvariant BA.2.75 had been detected in the community for the first time.
The cases are isolating at home in Auckland, but are linked to known imported cases.
Bloomfield said the two community cases were in addition to six cases of the subvariant the Ministry of Health earlier announced, which are all linked to recent overseas travel.
More on Tuesday's numbers
Of the 21 people who have died, one person was aged in their 40s, one was in their 60s, four were in their 70s, 10 were in their 80s and five were aged over 90.
Eight were men and 13 were women.
Four each were from Nelson Marlborough and the Southern District, three each were from the Wellington region and Canterbury/West Coast, two each were from the Auckland region and MidCentral District, and one each were from Waikato, Lakes District and Whanganui.
Tuesday's positive cases, detected through rapid antigen tests (RATs) and PCR tests, are located in Northland (247), Auckland (3102), Waikato (640), Bay of Plenty (444), Lakes (224), Hawke's Bay (482), MidCentral (459), Whanganui (178), Taranaki (240), Tairāwhiti (77), Wairarapa (137), Capital and Coast/Hutt Valley (1134), Nelson Marlborough (345), Canterbury/West Coast (1612), South Canterbury (178) and Southern (917).
The location of eight cases is unknown.
A total of 3210 PCR tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, while 18,167 RAT results were reported.
The number of active community cases is 66,653. They were identified in the past seven days but have not yet been classified as recovered.
An additional 348 people with Covid-19 had recently travelled overseas and arrived back in New Zealand, the ministry said.
On Monday, 7612 community cases were announced.
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