Another seven people have died with Covid-19, and 7043 more community cases have been identified, health authorities say.
Photo: AFP
The seven-day rolling average of case numbers today is 7415, down from 8475 a week ago.
The Ministry of Health said in a statement that there were 468 people in hospital, down from 480 yesterday, with the number of people in ICU staying steady for the past three days at 15.
The seven deaths being reported today are for people who have died over the previous three days and include three women and four men. One was in their 60s, three in their 70s, two in their 80s, and one was over 90.
One person was from Northland, one from the Auckland region, one from Waikato, one from MidCentral, two from Canterbury, and one from Southern.
The total number of publicly reported deaths of people with Covid-19 is now 744.
Today's cases were reported in the Northland (200), Auckland (1989), Waikato (435), Bay of Plenty (266), Lakes (122), Hawke's Bay (191), MidCentral (273), Whanganui (89), Taranaki (193), Tairāwhiti (75), Wairarapa (70), Capital and Coast (436), Hutt Valley (193), Nelson Marlborough (287), Canterbury (1203), South Canterbury (152), Southern (782) and West Coast (85) DHBs.
There were also 76 cases identified at the border.
Yesterday 14 more people were reported to have died with Covid-19 and another 8242 new community cases were reported, the Ministry of Health said.
There have now been 927,762 cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand.
What else has happened?
Debate has reignited about whether masking is being taken seriously enough to enable it to have the full effect for preventing the spread of Covid-19.
Northland medicine specialist Gary Payinda said too many people were being granted medical exemptions, and he wanted to see the criteria tightened.
While immunocompromised and vulnerable people said they were not able to go about their daily lives as they would otherwise partly because masking was becoming too relaxed.
This week New Zealand's borders opened to visitors coming from countries that don't require a visa, but a new report showed hotels aren't expected to see a recovery in business until the end of the year.
The Hotel Market Snapshot predicts hoteliers face months more of doing it tough before the accommodation market begins to return to pre-Covid-19 by summer.
