There are 8728 new Covid-19 community cases in New Zealand, the Ministry of Health has announced on Friday.
The numbers were reported over the last 24 hours.
There are 759 people in hospital with the virus, eight fewer than Thursday.
Thirteen people are in an intensive care or high dependency unit, seven fewer than 24 hours ago.
The average age of those in hospital with Covid-19 remains at 66.
The seven-day rolling average of Covid hospitalisations is 764, up on 700 a week ago, but down slightly on 766 24 hours ago.
Twenty-six more people with the virus have died. The deaths had occurred since April 26.
Of the 26 people who have died, two were aged in their 60s, three were in their 70s, 10 were in their 80s and 11 were aged over 90.
Eight were men and 18 were women.
Eight were from Canterbury, five were from the Auckland region, three were from the Southern District, two each were from Waikato, the MidCentral District and Nelson Marlborough, and one each were from Bay of Plenty, the Lakes District, Tairāwhiti and Hawke's Bay.
The latest deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths of people with Covid-19 to 1954.
The seven-day rolling average of deaths is now 26.
The seven-day rolling average of cases is 8913, down on 9994 a week ago, and down on 9161 24 hours ago.
Friday's positive cases, detected through rapid antigen tests (RATs) and PCR tests, are located in Northland (207), Auckland (2568), Waikato (605), Bay of Plenty (339), Lakes (211), Hawke's Bay (331), MidCentral (358), Whanganui (160), Taranaki (239), Tairāwhiti (66), Wairarapa (115), Capital and Coast/Hutt Valley (1049), Nelson Marlborough (268), Canterbury/West Coast (1324), South Canterbury (109) and Southern (770).
The location of nine cases is unknown.
A total of 3711 PCR tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, while 15,475 RAT results were reported.
The number of active community cases is 62,345. They were identified in the past seven days but have not yet been classified as recovered.
An additional 359 people with Covid-19 had recently travelled overseas and arrived back in New Zealand, the ministry said.
On Thursday, 9953 community cases were announced.
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