There are 4540 new Covid-19 community cases in New Zealand, the Ministry of Health has announced on Thursday.
The cases were reported over the last 24 hours.
There are 473 people in hospital with the virus, 23 fewer than Wednesday.
Ten people are in an intensive care or high dependency unit, three fewer than 24 hours ago.
The average age of those in hospital is 64.
The seven-day rolling average of hospitalisations is 527, down on 617 a week ago, and down on 541 24 hours ago.
Sixteen more people with the virus have died.
Of the 16 people who have died, three were aged in their 60s, three were in their 70s, seven were in their 80s and three were aged over 90.
Eight were men and eight were women.
Four each were from the Auckland region and Wellington region, two each were from Hawke's Bay and Canterbury, and one each were from Northland, Bay of Plenty, the Lakes District and Taranaki.
There are now a total of 1807 deaths confirmed as attributable to Covid-19, either as the underlying cause of death or as a contributing factor.
The seven-day rolling average increase in total deaths attributable to Covid-19 is 12.
The seven-day rolling average of cases is 3928, down on 4750 a week ago, and down on 3975 24 hours ago.
Thursday's positive cases, detected through rapid antigen tests (RATs) and PCR tests, are located in Northland (123), Auckland (1672), Waikato (416), Bay of Plenty (219), Lakes (85), Hawke's Bay (129), MidCentral (153), Whanganui (69), Taranaki (132), Tairāwhiti (41), Wairarapa (39), Capital and Coast (302), Hutt Valley (205), Nelson Marlborough (135), Canterbury (461), West Coast (33), South Canterbury (47) and Southern (278).
The location of one case is unknown.
A total of 3846 PCR tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, while 10,688 RAT results were reported.
The number of active community cases is 27,487. They were identified in the past seven days but have not yet been classified as recovered.
An additional 164 people with Covid-19 had recently travelled overseas and arrived back in New Zealand, the ministry said.
On Wednesday, 4489 community cases were announced.
SHARE ME