Deaths reported today include one from Northland, seven from the Auckland area, one from Waikato, two from Bay of Plenty, one from Taranaki, one from South Canterbury, three from Capital & Coast/Hutt and one from Canterbury/West Coast .
Five were in their 70s, five were in their 80s, and seven were over 90. Ten were women and seven were men. All 17 deaths occurred in the past 13 days.
There are 689 people in hospital with the virus, 13 of whom are in intensive care.
The seven-day moving average for community affairs is 9279 – up from 7053 around this time last week.
Yesterday there were 662 people battling the virus in hospital, which health officials warned was a “significant increase”.
There were 7,461 cases of intercourse yesterday and eight deaths.
Cases in hospital: North Country: 13; Waitemata: 137; Provinces of Manukau: 49; Auckland: 83; Waikato: 59; Bay of Plenty: 33; Lakes: 10; Hawke’s Bay: 27; Middle Central: 28; Whanganui: 16; Taranaki: 13; Tairawiti: 4; Wairarapa: 11; Capital & Coast/Hutt: 68; Nelson Marlborough: 12; Canterbury/West Coast: 77; South Canterbury: 20; Southern: 29.
‘Sick of this pandemic’
University of Auckland immunologist Anna Brook said this was alarming and the country is now at the most precarious point in New Zealand’s pandemic so far.
“I think it’s not unexpected that human behavior is creeping in now, we’re all sick of this pandemic, we don’t want to be restricted, we want to go back to normal life, but just want it to go away, isn’t going to make it go away .”
Brooks has urged Kiwis to continue the fight against the virus by wearing masks.
She also wanted the second booster shot to be made more widely available to help stop the virus from spreading.
“We just have to come together as a country and say, ‘Let’s do this, let’s get through the winter. Mask on.’
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today she expected a “hard winter”, with a spike in Covid cases and winter illnesses that put pressure on the health system.
She said she never stopped giving Covid and never stopped receiving the case numbers.
The increase in the number of cases was predicted and is also seen around the world.
“We expected that we would have additional variants and that the winter would be difficult … in the UK and Europe they are also seeing an increase in cases of up to 30 per cent, and that’s at a time without winter, so they are looking for us to see what to expect,” Ardern told TVNZ.
New Zealand had a set of measures that other countries did not have – for example making it mandatory to wear a mask and isolating positive cases as well as their household contacts when sick.
However, that only worked when people were playing with the ball, she said.
“Not everyone follows that.”
Ardern reminded people that even if they’ve caught Covid, they can get it again and urged anyone with symptoms to get a test.