NZ Covid 19 Update: 7592 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, 11 deaths reported

There are 7592 new Covid-19 community cases in New Zealand, the Ministry of Health has announced on Monday.

Health worker hands out rapid antigen tests at Covid-19 testing centre in Henderson, Auckland (Source: Getty)

The numbers were reported over the last 24 hours.

There are 640 people in hospital with the virus, including 23 in an intensive care or high dependency unit.

This is an increase on Sunday’s hospitalisations of 604, with one more person in ICU compared with 24 hours ago.

The ministry also announced 11 Covid-related deaths. Ten of them had died over the past three days, while one had died 12 days ago. The deaths were only recently identified to the ministry.

The ministry explained delays to reporting can be associated with people dying with, rather than of, the virus, and Covid-19 being discovered after they have died.

Of the 11 people who have died, three each were from the Auckland region and Waikato, two were from Canterbury and one each were from Hawke’s Bay, Taranaki and Wellington.

Two of the people were aged in their 60s, three were in their 70s, three in their 80s and three were over 90.

Six were men and five were women.

“This is a very sad time for whānau and friends and our thoughts are with them. Out of respect, we will be making no further comment,” the ministry said.

The latest deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths to 500.

The seven-day rolling average of deaths is 14.

Monday’s positive cases, detected through rapid antigen tests (RATs) and PCR tests, are located in Northland (312), Auckland (1378), Waikato (667), Bay of Plenty (309), Lakes (150), Hawke’s Bay (284), MidCentral (350), Whanganui (138), Taranaki (248), Tairāwhiti (69), Wairarapa (89), Capital and Coast (549), Hutt Valley (332), Nelson Marlborough (270), Canterbury (1286), South Canterbury (153), Southern (937) and West Coast (68).

The location of three cases is unknown.

The ministry said 7463 of Monday’s cases were detected through RATs and 129 through PCR tests. A total of 999 PCR tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, while 14,342 RAT results were reported.

The number of active community cases is 71,167. They were identified in the past seven days but have not yet been classified as recovered.

The seven-day rolling average of community cases is 10,169, down from 10,543 on Sunday.

“The seven-day rolling average of case numbers continues to decline, with today’s seven-day rolling average at 10,169 – last Monday it was 13,218,” the ministry said.

“The number of reported community cases is expected to continue to fluctuate day to day, and is usually lower over the weekend with less reporting of results and testing.”

The ministry added it is important to continue to follow public health advice, even though the overall number of community cases is trending downwards. This includes getting vaccinated.

There are also 39 new cases of Covid-19 at the border, the ministry announced on Monday.

On Sunday, 6718 community cases were announced.