17 Mar 2022

Covid-19 update: Ten deaths, 930 people in hospital, 19,566 new community cases

1:34 pm on 17 March 2022

Ten deaths - including a person in their 30s - have been reported in today's Ministry of Health statistics, along with 19,566 new cases.

A negative result of SARS-CoV-2 antigen test is seen in this illustration photo

Photo: AFP

There have now been 151 Covid-related deaths in New Zealand.

The 10 people who have died include one from Northland, five from Auckland, one from the Bay of Plenty, one from Hawke's Bay, and one from the Hutt Valley.

One was in their 30s, one in their 50s, three in their 70s, two in their 80s and two in their 90s. Four were women and were five were men. Demographic information for one person is not available at this stage.

There are 930 people in hospital, including 23 people in intensive care.

Speaking at today's Covid update, Northern Region Health Coordination Centre chief clinical officer Dr Andrew Old said they were pleased Auckland case numbers were tracking down and confirmed that Auckland's peak had now passed.

Auckland's community case numbers fell slightly again today to 4867.

Today's other cases were in the Northland (700), Waikato (1820), Bay of Plenty (1265), Lakes (624), Hawke's Bay (1101), MidCentral (821), Whanganui (269), Taranaki (661), Tairāwhiti (385), Wairarapa (260), Capital and Coast (1405), Hutt Valley (874), Nelson Marlborough (521), Canterbury (2493), South Canterbury (212), Southern (1220) and West Coast (60) DHBs.

There were also 25 cases identified at the border.

There have now been 437,414 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand.

There were 6003 booster doses given yesterday, along with 369 first doses; 543 second doses; 28 third primary doses; 399 paediatric first doses and 4083 paediatric second doses.

Earlier today, modeller David Welch was calling for a better testing regime, which could include sending rapid antigen test (RAT) swabs in the mail.

Dr Welch said this would help keep track of the variants the country was dealing with now that PCR testing and MIQ management of border cases were taking a back seat.

Get the RNZ app

for ad-free news and current affairs