moving in the right direction, but loosening settings before we are completely on top of it risk infections going up again,” she said. “We just need to stay the course a little longer.”
Verrall said the health system usually sees elevated pressure through September, and it was hoped there would be to see some sustained reductions in both cases and hospitalisations then.
There will be no changes to case isolation and household contact quarantine requirements and the next review setting will be in September.
There are now a total of 1688 deaths confirmed as attributable to Covid-19, the ministry says, which are deaths where Covid-19 is either the underlying cause of death or as a contributing factor.
In the past seven days, there have been an average of 16 deaths confirmed each day as attributable to Covid-19.
The Ministry of Health announced changes to the way it reports Covid related deaths last month, with the focus shifting to reporting cases where deaths can be wholly or partly “attributed” to the virus.
Information on the number of new deaths of people with Covid-19 reported to the Ministry of Health in the past 24 hours, and the seven-day rolling average, is available on the Ministry of Health website.
This includes information on the age band and location of newly reported deaths.
The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers today is 5120, down from 6683 last Tuesday.
There are 15 people in intensive care and 634 hospitalisations.
The 634 people in hospital are across Aotearoa: Northland: 34; Waitematā: 65; Counties Manukau: 49; Auckland: 80; Waikato: 54; Bay of Plenty: 26; Lakes: 15; Hawke’s Bay: 37; MidCentral: 20; Whanganui: 15; Taranaki: 22; Tairāwhiti: 2; Wairarapa: 7; Capital, Coast: 18; Hutt: 17; Nelson Marlborough: 15; Canterbury: 97; West Coast: 5; South Canterbury: 25; Southern: 31.
The Canterbury region has the highest number of Covid-positive hospitalisations, with 97 positive patients, followed by 80 in Auckland.
The seven-day rolling average of hospitalisations is 645, down from 787 last Tuesday.
The average age of those in hospital is 64.
The ministry reports there are 35,823 active cases of Covid-19 today, which are cases identified in the last week and not yet considered recovered.
An additional 203 imported cases had been detected in recent arrivals.
In the past 24 hours, 26 people received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and 21 people got their second dose. 481 first booster doses and 8136 second booster doses were also delivered.
There were also 11 paediatric first doses and 92 paediatric second doses delivered.
