Nationally, the Ministry of Health said there are 10,424 new community cases, 788 current hospitalisations, and 21 deaths.
The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers today is 9528.
There are 42 people in hospital in the Southern DHB area.
Nationally, 20 people are in intensive care of a high-dependency unit today.
Hospitalisations
Total number 788: Northland: 28; Waitematā: 135; Counties Manukau: 57; Auckland: 102; Waikato: 60; Bay of Plenty: 43; Lakes: 20; Hawke’s Bay: 35; MidCentral: 34; Whanganui: 17; Taranaki: 15; Tairāwhiti: 4; Wairarapa: 7; Capital & Coast/Hutt: 50; Nelson Marlborough: 15; Canterbury/West Coast: 115; South Canterbury: 9; Southern: 42.
Community cases
21 new deaths, change to reporting
The Ministry of Health says there are 21 new deaths nationally, including one from April and one from June, which are being reported following completion of the cause of death assessment.
The total number of publicly reported deaths with Covid is now 1870 and the seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 23.
Of the latest deaths, four were from the Southern DHB area, three from Canterbury/West Coast, two from Auckland region, one from Waikato, one from Lakes, two from MidCentral, one from Whanganui, three from Wellington region and four were from Nelson/Marlborough.
One person was in their 40s, one in their 60s, four in their 70s, 10 in their 80s and five aged over 90. Of these people, 13 were women and eight were men.
From today, the Ministry of Health is changing the way it reports Covid-19 deaths, shifting from reporting all people who died within 28 days of a Covid infection to people who died because of Covid-19 or where it was recorded as a contributing factor.
"While we continue to report additional deaths with Covid-19 in the daily updates, the focus on reporting total Covid-19 deaths will shift to cases where Covid-19 is either the underlying or a contributing cause of a death. These are the deaths that can be wholly or partly ‘attributed’ to Covid-19. This a more meaningful measure in understanding the burden of severe disease from Covid-19," the Ministry said.
"Over time, this will also allow us to provide more demographic information about people who have died from Covid-19, such as age, ethnicity, and vaccination status."
Omicron subvariant
Today the Ministry is reporting two community cases in Auckland with the Omicron BA.2.75 sub-variant, the first time this subvariant has been detected in the community in New Zealand. Both cases are linked to known imported cases and are isolating at home.
This is in addition to the six BA.2.75 reported cases previously reported, which are all associated with recent travel overseas, the Ministry said.
"The Ministry regularly assesses the latest evidence on variants to ensure that our public health settings are appropriate. At this stage, there is no evidence that BA.2.75 requires a shift in public health settings already in place to manage other Omicron variants."
BA.2.75 is a recently identified second generation subvariant of BA.2, the dominant variant circulating in New Zealand at this stage. BA.2.75 has only been recently identified as distinct from BA.2, and evidence on its transmissibility, immune evasiveness and severity is still preliminary and emerging.
"We do know BA.2.75 has some characteristics that looks like they may enhance its ability to evade immunity, similar to the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants, and there is some early evidence overseas that it may be slightly more transmissible than BA.2. There is no current evidence that it leads to more severe disease, although assessing the evidence is at a very early stage."
