By 1news.co.nz
There are 10,320 new Covid-19 community cases in New Zealand, the Ministry of Health has announced on Wednesday.
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The numbers were reported over the last 24 hours.
There are 744 people in hospital with the virus, 44 fewer than Tuesday.
Seventeen people are in an intensive care or high dependency unit, three fewer than 24 hours ago.
The average age of those in hospital with Covid-19 is now 65.
The seven-day rolling average of Covid hospitalisations is 766, up on 643 a week ago, and up slightly on 24 hours ago.
Thirty-four more people with the virus have died. They died in the past six days.
Of the 34 people who have died, two were aged in their 50s, two were in their 60s, seven were in their 70s, 13 were in their 80s and 10 were aged over 90.
Half were men and half were women.
Twelve were from the Auckland region, three each were from Bay of Plenty, Taranaki, Whanganui, Nelson Marlborough and the Southern District, two were from Waikato, and one each were from the Lakes District, TairÄwhiti, Hawke’s Bay, the Wellington region and Canterbury.
The latest deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths of people with Covid-19 to 1904.
The seven-day rolling average of deaths is now 24.
The seven-day rolling average of cases is 9367, down on 9710, and down on 9528 24 hours ago.
Wednesday’s positive cases, detected through rapid antigen tests (RATs) and PCR tests, are located in Northland (253), Auckland (3017), Waikato (698), Bay of Plenty (425), Lakes (228), Hawke’s Bay (413), MidCentral (433), Whanganui (146), Taranaki (259), TairÄwhiti (75), Wairarapa (143), Capital and Coast/Hutt Valley (1200), Nelson Marlborough (337), Canterbury/West Coast (1598), South Canterbury (155) and Southern (935).
The location of five cases is unknown.
A total of 4103 PCR tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, while 17,853 RAT results were reported.
The number of active community cases is 65,523. They were identified in the past seven days but have not yet been classified as recovered.
An additional 396 people with Covid-19 had recently travelled overseas and arrived back in New Zealand, the ministry said.
On Tuesday, 10,424 community cases were announced.
More to come
