Covid-19: 279 new Hawke's Bay Covid-19 cases
Hawke's Bay has 279 new community Covid-19 cases and 13 people in hospital.
The region's cases are among 6498 new community cases around the country.
In a statement, the Ministry of Health said 487 people were in hospital with Covid-19, including 11 in ICU.
New Zealand is facing a second wave of coronavirus infections as cases of the Omicron subvariant BA.5 spread around the country. The BA.5 subvariant appears more transmissible and better at evading immunity than others and is expected to overtake BA.2 as the dominant strain within weeks.
A further eight Covid-related deaths.
Of today's deaths, three were from the Auckland region, two were in Waikato, one was from Taranaki, one was from MidCentral, and one was from Whanganui. All were from the past two days.
One person was aged in their 60s, four were in their 80s, and three were aged over 90. Of these people, four were women and four were men.
Today's eight Covid-related death reported today take the total number of reported virus-related deaths to 1567.
There are 487 people in hospital with the virus, including 11 in intensive care.
Today's seven-day rolling average of community cases is 7046 - while this time last week it was 5129.
