Covid-19: Ministry to release latest virus figures shortly – صحيفة الصوت

The Ministry of Health is expected to release the latest Covid-19 figures shortly.

New Zealand has been in midst of a second wave, fuelled by the more transmissible BA.5 subvariant. As of this week, BA.5 accounted for half of community cases, and this was likely higher given the lag in sequencing.

More worrying still, earlier this week two new community cases of a troubling Omicron subvariant, BA.2.75 subvariant (also known as centaurus), were identified in the country.

However, cases numbers have steadily declined in recent days, leading some to cautiously suggest Aotearoa has passed the peak of the second Omicron wave.

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On Thursday, the ministry reported there were 9953 new community cases of Covid-19 and a further 32 deaths of people with the virus.

The seven-day rolling average number of cases was 9161, down from 9826 last Thursday. And this trend has continued for six days in a row.

Hospitalisations remain high, with this wave hitting elderly New Zealanders hard. There were 767 people in hospital with the virus, including 20 in intensive care or high dependency units, on Thursday.

Both the Ministry of Health and Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand) are monitoring the continued increase of cases and hospitalisations to inform its response to the current community outbreak.

The Government recently announced new measures to expand access to free rapid antigen tests (RATs), masks and Covid-19 antivirals. You can find helpful advice on how to access them here.