There are 15,161 new community cases of Covid-19 today, and 618 people are in hospital. 

One person has died with Covid and 10 people are in intensive care, the Ministry of Health says. 

The ministry said the decrease in cases can be seen as encouraging but urged caution, saying the rolling average of case numbers is a more reliable indicator. 

The seven-day rolling average of cases is 17,272, up from 16,687 on Saturday. 

The ministry said a person had died at Auckland Hospital. 

"The person had unrelated medical conditions and had tested positive for Covid-19." 

The new community cases are in Northland (382), Auckland (7,226), Waikato (1,334), Bay of Plenty (937), Lakes (434), Hawke's Bay (336), MidCentral (378), Whanganui (59), Taranaki (239), Tairāwhiti (166), Wairarapa (85), Capital and Coast (1,161), Hutt Valley (648), Nelson Marlborough (233), Canterbury (1,019), South Canterbury (52), Southern (444), West Coast (17). The DHB of 11 cases is unknown. 

By today's figures, 3.5% of New Zealand's population are active community cases. The actual incidence of Covid-19 is likely to be significantly higher. 

The 618 people in hospital are in Northland (10), North Shore (117), Middlemore (184), Auckland (167), Waikato (49), Bay of Plenty (16), Rotorua (8), Tairawhiti (2), Hawke's Bay (6), Taranaki (6), MidCentral (10), Wairarapa (2), Hutt Valley (2), Capital and Coast (20), Nelson Marlborough (2), Canterbury (13), and Southern (4). 

The average age of people in hospital is 55. 

The Ministry said while it was still early in the Omicron outbreak, based on available data unvaccinated people were four times over-represented in hospital. 

Just three percent of eligible people aged 12 and over in New Zealand were unvaccinated, yet they made up 13 per cent of people in hospital in Northland and Auckland. 

Of those in Northern region hospitals, 18 per cent are unvaccinated, 2.5 per cent are partly immunised, 40 per cent are double-vaxxed and 22 per cent are boosted. The vaccination status of the others is unknown. 

Yesterday there were five more deaths and 18,833 new community cases of Covid-19 detected, down from several days above 20,000. 

The greatest drop was in Auckland, where there were 9789 cases reported on Saturday, down from 13,252 on Friday and 13,237 on Thursday. 

That's led to some suggestions that the peak could be over for Auckland. 

Epidemiologist Michael Baker told the Herald he was "cautiously optimistic" cases could be falling in the city. 

But he said it would be "many, many weeks" before measures preventing virus transmission should be relaxed. 

The University of Otago professor of public health said several days would be needed to see if the trend was confirmed. 

"If it's continuing by Tuesday it'd be a fairly reasonable view to say numbers have peaked in Auckland." 

That mattered because Auckland's outbreak was thought to be one to three weeks ahead of the rest of the country. 

Baker said hospitalisations lagged about 10 days behind cases, so if there was a drop in Auckland's hospitalisations in 10 days' time that would show the city had turned the corner. 

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins, meanwhile, believes the real number of daily infections in New Zealand could be closer to 100,000 than the 20,000 being reported daily. 

When vaccine mandates start to end will largely depend on when New Zealand's Omicron outbreak starts to wane, he told TVNZ's Q&A this morning. 

Hipkins said the mandates would remain in place only for as long as they could be "absolutely justified". 

And the ministry has warned the drop could be because of fewer people logging their rapid antigen test results. 

Most tests for Covid-19 are now done using RATs, and people are generally expected to upload the result themselves. 

One tradie in Auckland told the Herald he knew about 25 people with Covid-19 and none of them had officially recorded their case with the Ministry of Health. 

The ministry is asking people to register both positive and negative RATs. Information on how to do so is available on the Unite against Covid-19 website. 

Epidemiologist Dr Rod Jackson told the Herald earlier this week he cringes when he sees cases hovering at around 23,000 each day, as some modelling had shown there could be four times as many cases. 

Most Omicron cases so far have been in younger people, but Jackson said the crunch would come when it spread more amongst the elderly population who are at higher risk.