There have been 17,148 new cases of Covid-19 in the community and 34 more deaths reported today.
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Director of Public Health Caroline McElnay says the deaths reported today have occurred over the past 10 days.
"Delays in reporting can be associated with people dying with rather than of Covid-19 and Covid being discovered after they died.
"Evidence to date suggests some of these deaths will not be caused directly by Covid-19, however, we are seeing many people who are dying with Covid-19 who are older and may have other pre-existing conditions that heighten their risk."
Of the 34 deaths being reported today, two were from Northland, 17 from the Auckland region, two from Waikato, one from the Bay of Plenty, one from the Lakes DHB, two from Hawke's Bay, five from the Wellington region, three from Canterbury, and one from the Southern DHB .
One person was in their 30s, one person was in their 50s, five were in their 60s, nine were in their 70s, seven in their 80s and 11 were in their 90s.
Seventeen were male and 17 were female.
"Our thoughts are with all their whānau and friends," Dr McElnay says.
Today's deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths with Covid-19 to 303.
Despite the death toll, it was encouraging to see an overall and sustained drop in case numbers, Dr McElnay says.
Today's new community cases are in Northland (730), Auckland (2,899), Waikato (1,566), Bay of Plenty (967), Lakes (479), Hawke's Bay (1,015), MidCentral (910), Whanganui (447), Taranaki (706), Tairāwhiti (250), Wairarapa (210), Capital and Coast (1,035), Hutt Valley (617), Nelson Marlborough (690), Canterbury (2,816), South Canterbury (318), Southern (1,404), West Coast (79) and the location of 10 cases are not known.
There are also 44 new cases of Covid-19 identified at the border today.
On vaccinations, there were 2156 booster doses given yesterday, as well as 72 first doses; 172 second doses; 18 third primary dose; 106 paediatric first doses and 2929 paediatric second doses.
Yesterday 12,882 new community cases of Covid-19 were reported and a further 11 deaths of people with the virus.
Education Ministry figures show more than 200,000 children have been staying home from school every day this month during the Omicron surge.
