One person has died from the coronavirus and there are 18 new community cases of Covid-19 today.
Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
A woman in her 70s has died from Covid-19 last night at Middlemore Hospital.
It is the 51st death in New Zealand of someone with the coronavirus since the pandemic began.
Of today’s 18 cases, 13 are in Auckland, three in Waikato, one in Bay of Plenty, and one in Lakes.
There are 54 people with Covid-19 in hospital, including eight in ICU or HDU. The average age of current hospitalisations is 51.
Of the hospitalisations, 19 are in Auckland City Hospital, seven in North Shore, 22 in Middlemore, three in Tauranga, two in Rotorua and one in Waikato.
In MIQ, there are 16 new cases, of which five are of the Omicron variant. That takes the total number of Omicron cases in the country to 54.
The majority of the new cases at the border arrived on 24 and 25 December, arriving from Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Uganda, and Sri Lanka.
The Ministry of Health said 6363 active contacts are being managed.
The ministry continues to urge people including holidaymakers to get tested for the virus if they experience any symptoms, not matter how mild or their vaccination status.
Testing locations nationwide can be found on the Healthpoint website.
Waitematā DHB is set to become the eighth DHB to reach 90 percent of its eligible Māori population for one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, with just 125 doses to go as of early this afternoon.
There have been no unexpected wastewater detections.
A total of 4,553,294 vaccine passes have been issued.
