Thursday March 3

Today there are 23,183 new community cases.

A person has died in a Bay of Plenty rest home. The person died of an unrelated medical condition while receiving palliative care and had tested positive for Covid-19. 

Of these, 520 in Northland, 13,237 in Auckland, 1,870 in Waikato, 1,332 in Bay of Plenty, 537 in Lakes, 315 in Hawke’s Bay, 381 in MidCentral, 79 in Whanganui, 289 in Taranaki, 134 in Tairāwhiti, 94 in Wairarapa, 1,487 in Capital and Coast, 642 in Hutt Valley, 271 in Nelson Marlborough, 1,294 in Canterbury, 53 in South Canterbury, 615 in Southern, 16 in West Coast and 17 are in unknown locations.

85 percent of today’s community cases were detected by a Rapid Antigen Test.

Speaking at today's 1pm update to the media, Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said that between February 21 to February 27, around 1 percent of the New Zealand population were active cases. He also noted that of all the active cases, 54 percent are under the age of 30.

Free Rapid Antigen Tests available to order online

Free Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) can now be ordered online to test Covid-19 household contacts or symptomatic people.

For those who fit the criteria, RATs can be ordered though the newly launched RAT requester site. A list of the locations RATS can be collected is here.

Jo Pugh, acting group manager of Covid-19 testing and supply said "it’s one of a range of ways we are make testing more readily available for those who need it".

Hospitalisations

There are now 503 people in hospital. Of these, 7 people are in ICU. 

There are 146,527 active community cases. These cases were identified in the past 21 days and not yet classified as recovered.

Booster doses and tests

Yesterday, 17,963 booster doses were administered.

In the last 24 hours there have been 20,346 PCR tests.

There have been 7.8 million Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) dispatched in the last 7 days.

Click here for a list of updated locations of interest.

Top Image: Person walking while wearing a mask. (File photo) Photo: iStock

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