There are 22,454 new community cases of Covid-19 to report today including 834 in the Southern District Health Board area.
The Ministry of Health gave an update on today's number by media statement.
It said there were also four new deaths of people with Covid-19 to report.
"Sadly, we are today reporting the deaths of four people with Covid-19. Of these people, two deaths occurred in Lakes, one in Tairāwhiti, and one in Counties Manukau.
"Our thoughts and condolences are with the patients’ family and friends.
"Out of respect, we will be making no further comment."
Today's case numbers are: Northland (716), Auckland (8,529), Waikato (2,109), Bay of Plenty (1,427), Lakes (633), Hawke’s Bay (707), MidCentral (655), Whanganui (202), Taranaki (536), Tairāwhiti (373), Wairarapa (166), Capital and Coast (1,879), Hutt Valley (1,062), Nelson Marlborough (452), Canterbury (2,024), South Canterbury (120), Southern (835), West Coast (20); Unknown (9).
The Southern DHB area has 6224 active cases and 4098 cases have recovered, this means the South has seen a total of 10,322 cases since the current outbreak began.
There are 742 people with Covid-19 in hospitals throughout the country. Of these 19 are in ICU or HDU.
There are 9 people with Covid-19 in Southern hospitals, this is the highest number of hospitalisations in the South to date.
There are also 2 people with Covid-19 in Timaru hospitals.
"The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 remains steady, with 19 people now in an intensive care unit (ICU) or high dependency unit (HDU). This represents 2.5 percent of current hospitalisations, around one fifth of the rate seen at the peak of the Delta outbreak when 13 percent of hospitalised people required ICU or HDU care.
"There are 8529 new cases being reported in the Auckland Region today, representing 56 percent of the total new cases – down from 61 percent of total new cases a week ago. This number is still high and the outbreak is still very active in the Auckland region, but numbers have levelled off there in the last week. We will know in the next few days if this signals that the outbreak has peaked there."
