There are 23,894 new community cases of Covid-19 to announce today including 914 in the South - the highest daily number in the area reported so far.
This is an increase from daily cases reported from Saturday to Monday, which were below 20,000. Today's cases takes the total number of active cases in New Zealand to 192,452.
The South reported its highest daily tally of community cases since the beginning of the outbreak of the variant Omicron.
The previous record was 867 cases on February 25. Today the South also has more hospitalisations than it has had before.
Care needs to be taken when interpreting daily reported cases, which are expected to fluctuate, the Ministry of Health said in a statement this afternoon.
"We are still seeing a daily increase in Covid-19 hospitalisations and the seven-day rolling average of community cases.
"From March 1 to March 7, the seven day rolling average increased from 10,698 to 17,921, and over the same period, hospitalisations increased from 373 to 696.
"These numbers clearly show that Omicron is still spreading in our communities. We all need to continue to wear a mask, physical distance, and get tested where required to reduce the spread of the virus.
"Contributing factors to the decrease in case numbers seen in the previous few days are likely to have been either a lower level of testing and a lower level of self-reporting of RAT test results over the weekend, or a combination of both."
Today's new cases are in: Northland (718), Auckland (9,881), Waikato (2,146), Bay of Plenty (1,691), Lakes (660), Hawke’s Bay (707), MidCentral (632), Whanganui (166), Taranaki (525), Tairāwhiti (366), Wairarapa (136), Capital and Coast (1,787), Hutt Valley (1,061), Nelson Marlborough (435), Canterbury (1,903), South Canterbury (129), Southern (914), West Coast (30); Unknown (7).
There are 757 people with Covid-19 in hospital including 16 in ICU and HDU. There are eight people in Southern hospitals.
Please note, the Ministry of Health’s daily reported cases may differ slightly from those reported at a DHB or local public health unit level. This is because of different reporting cut-off times and the assignment of cases between regions, for example when a case is tested outside their usual region of residence. Total numbers will always be the formal daily case tally as reported to the WHO. Due to the increased used use of RATs and system lag issues there may be a discrepancy in the number of total active cases from the territorial authority break down breakdown.
Leaving isolation
There have been some reports of people with Covid-19 undertaking rapid antigen testing (Rat) in order to return a negative result so they can leave isolation, the Ministry said.
"Everyone who tests positive for Covid-19, and their household contacts, needs to isolate from the community to help slow the spread of the virus. However, it’s not necessary to then return a negative test once your isolation period is over in order to return to work or school. It’s also important to note that some people may continue to test positive on a RAT for some time, even once they are past their infectious stage or have recovered.
"This guidance does not extend to those household contacts covered by the Close Contact Exemption Scheme who are able to continue going to work during their isolation period so long as they return a negative test before work each day."
Director of public health Dr Caroline McElnay led today's press conference about updates on the response to the Covid outbreak and was joined by the Ministry's data and digital boss, Michael Dreyer.
In comparison to the Delta outbreak, patients in hospital with the Omicron variant were presenting with less severe illness, McElnay said.
"The lesser severity is strongly related to New Zealand's high vaccination rate. Many experts rightly warn that the illness can be very severe for those who are unvaccinated."
While still early in the Omicron outbreak, the data available shows that unvaccinated people were four times over-represented in current hospitalisation data, she said.
Just 3% of eligible people over 12 years of age have not had any doses of the vaccine, but represent 17% of those in hospital, she said.
Critical healthcare workers can return early
McElnay said there was continued pressure on staff in hospitals due to Covid, particularly through the night.
Critical healthcare workers can now return to work earlier than usual, but only if it can be done safely and it was needed to provide the service, she said.
Healthcare workers with two negative tests can return to work on day 6.
Covid-19 positive staff can return to work on a Covid ward as long as all patients have coronavirus. They must wear N95 masks, be asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, agree to return, and work in a situation where their absence puts an essential service at work.
At this stage, she was not aware of any asymptomatic Covid-19 positive healthcare workers working at the moment. By only working in a Covid ward, there was no risk to the patient from a coronavirus point of view, she said.
That option should only be used when all other options had been exhausted.
McElnay said there had been a system in place that would allow healthcare workers in some situations to return to work where they could go back early with a negative Rat at day 5 and 6.
They were then asked to provide a pathway for a situation where there was a lot of Covid cases on a ward and needed staff who had tested positive for Covid but were well to care for them. They advised healthcare services about this second option over the weekend and had lengthy guidance on this.
McElnay thanked all staff - especially in Auckland - for being flexible in order to keep the health system running while under pressure.
She said DHBs would have figures around how many staff were isolating and was aware of staff being moved around to cover the most important duties.
RAT approval process
The Ministry had a process in place to approve Rats and the process had been recently reviewed to look at the criteria for approvals, she said.
On the basis of that review, it had gone back to suppliers and asked them to provide more information. If that information was acceptable then they would be approving more and she believed this would be happen.
The system was in place to make sure that Rats did what they said they would do on the packet and were as accurate as possible.
"I'm confident we will see more Rat tests approved."
On the Queenstown vaccine temperature botch reported yesterday, McElnay said it was a cold chain issue which came to light.
She the vaccine cold chain needed to be maintained to make sure it was kept at the correct temperature. It was unfortunate it happened, and she apologised to people who were vaccinated and have since found out it may not be as effective as they thought it would be.
Dreyer said the system could now handle 20,000 cases an hour. The Rat requester site is now fully operational and yesterday 55,000 orders were place.
He asked people to record their result on My Covid Record, whether it was positive or negative. It helped provide a clear picture about how the pandemic was progressing.
From March 10, the Ministry will send text messages telling people when their isolation period is completed.
