Thursday February 24
There are 6,137 new cases of Covid-19 today.
The Ministry of Health has confirmed that New Zealand will move into phase three of the Omicron plan at 11.59pm tonight (Thursday).
You can read about what that means here.
The Ministry of Health is now breaking down the location of cases separated by whether they were found through a PCR test or a RAT test.
Of today's PCR cases: 56 are in Northland, 1,979 in Auckland, 314 are in Waikato, 116 in Bay of Plenty, 75 in Lakes District, 30 in Hawke’s Bay, 69 in MidCentral, 13 in Whanganui, 30 in Taranaki, 26 in Tairāwhiti, 11 in Wairarapa, 120 in Capital and Coast, 68 in Hutt Valley, 112 in Nelson Marlborough, 194 in Canterbury, 3 in South Canterbury, 4 in West Coast and 305 in Southern.
Of today's RAT cases: 24 are in Northland, 1,900 in Auckland, 163 are in Waikato, 75 in Bay of Plenty, 16 in Lakes District, 30 in Hawke’s Bay, 8 in MidCentral, 4 in Whanganui, 4 in Taranaki, 0 in Tairāwhiti, 4 in Wairarapa, 44 in Capital and Coast, 5 in Hutt Valley, 11 in Nelson Marlborough, 43 in Canterbury, 3 in South Canterbury, 0 in West Coast and 290 in Southern.
We have added the PCR and RAT cases together for each location in our map.
(Note: The Ministry of Health is reporting the total case number as 6,137. But when all the cases by region are added together the total comes to 6,149. We are reporting the numbers as they were given, but have contacted the Ministry for comment.)
There are 205 people in hospital, with 2 of those people in intensive care or high dependency units.
The average age of people currently in hospital is 52.
There is sadly one Covid-19-related death to report today. They were a patient at Middlemore Hospital.
The family has requested that no further details be released and, out of respect for those wishes, the Ministry has made no further comment.
According to the Ministry of Health, 59 percent of all active cases are under the age of 30 years old, and 13 percent of cases are above 50 years old.
96.5 percent of New Zealand's eligible population have had the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and 95 percent have had a second dose.
62.8 percent of those eligible have had a booster shot.
Click here for a list of updated locations of interest.
Top image: Rapid antigen tests which can be done from home. Photo: Aprott/iStock Images
More stories:
Why it's taking so long to get your Covid-19 test result
1 in 5 teenage girls globally have been abused by a male partner, study finds
Person arrested after trying to drive car into police during anti-mandate protest