There are 467 new cases in the South, including 182 in Dunedin, and 33 people in hospitals throughout the Southern DHB area today.
Meanwhile, another 14 people with Covid-19 have died, including one in the South, and 6232 new cases identified in the community, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers today is 6,850 - last Friday, it was 6,960.
BA variants
The Ministry of Health said today the Covid variants' presence in the community was not unexpected and further cases were expected.
"These Omicron subvariants are prevalent overseas and have been detected at our border for many weeks."
The Ministry also reported seven cases of BA.2.12.1 in the community, from whole genome sequencing of tests returned on May 18.
"Emerging data suggests BA.2.12.1 is marginally more transmissible than BA.2, the dominant subvariant currently circulating in Aotearoa-New Zealand. There is some clinical data to suggest the BA.5 and BA.4 subvariants have increased transmissibility when compared to BA.2, but no data suggesting they cause more severe illness."
The vast majority of recently sequenced cases in New Zealand continue to be of the Omicron BA.2 sub-variant, with small number of cases with the BA.1 sub-variant, the Ministry said.
In addition to the community testing, wastewater results returned in the past week have detected BA.4 or BA.5 in Auckland, New Plymouth and Porirua and BA.2.12.1 in Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Palmerston North and Taupō.
"Together the community cases and wastewater results suggest that the BA.4/5 and BA.2.12.1 Omicron subvariants are circulating in parts of the community in New Zealand.
"The public health settings already in place to manage other Omicron variants are assessed to be appropriate for managing subvariants present in our community and no changes are required."
Covid deaths
There are 14 deaths with Covid to report today; 13 people have died in the past 8 days, while the Ministry was also reporting the historical death of a case late in 2020.
"This case had recovered at the time of death but was recently classified as having Covid-19 as a contributory cause of their death. This will continue to happen occasionally due to the timing of the mortality coding process, particularly in instances where deaths where Covid-19 is a contributory cause, and the death falls outside of the 28-day period of testing positive for Covid", the Ministry said.
Today’s reported deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths with Covid-19 to 1,210 and the seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 12.
Of the people whose deaths the Ministry was reporting today; one was from Northland; three were from the Auckland region, one was from Taranaki; one from Whanganui; one from the Wellington region; one from Nelson-Marlborough; four from Canterbury; one from South Canterbury and one from Southern.
Two people were in their 60s; three in 70s; three in their 80s and six were aged over 90. Of these people, four were women and 10 were men.
Hospitalisations
Cases in hospital: total number 390: Northland: 4; *Waitemata: 41; Counties Manukau: 30; Auckland: 78; Waikato: 25; Bay of Plenty: 7; Lakes: 3; Tairāwhiti: 4; Hawke’s Bay: 14; Taranaki: 8; Whanganui: 0; MidCentral: 14; Wairarapa: 4; Hutt Valley: 14; Capital and Coast: 32; Nelson Marlborough: 9; Canterbury: 59; South Canterbury: 10; West Coast: 1; Southern: 33.
Cases in community
Location of new community cases (PCR & RAT): Northland (161), Auckland (1,907), Waikato (443), Bay of Plenty (196), Lakes (77), Hawke’s Bay (189), MidCentral (227), Whanganui (73), Taranaki (177), Tairāwhiti (45), Wairarapa (55), Capital and Coast (556), Hutt Valley (237), Nelson Marlborough (239), Canterbury (1,007), South Canterbury (99), Southern (467), West Coast (73), Unknown (4)
Meanwhile, there are 69 new imported cases to report today.
Please note, the Ministry of Health’s daily reported cases may differ slightly from those reported at a DHB or local public health unit level. This is because of different reporting cut off times and the assignment of cases between regions, for example when a case is tested outside their usual region of residence. Total numbers will always be the formal daily case tally as reported to the WHO. Due to the increased use of RATs and system lag issues there may be a discrepancy in the number of total active cases from the territorial authority breakdown.
