There are 22,535 new Covid-19 cases today and a further five deaths have been reported. 

There are now 67 people who have died with Covid since the outbreak started in 2020. 

Three per cent of New Zealand's population are currently active cases of which there are 152,358. 

There are 562 people in hospital and 11 in intensive care with 382 of those in Auckland. Seven people are in intensive care in Auckland. 

The case numbers are down on yesterday's 23,183 but hospitalisations are up with 503 yesterday. 

The latest deaths are: 

• A patient with Covid died at Tauranga Hospital yesterday. The person was in hospital for an unrelated condition but had tested positive.
• A patient died at Waikato Hospital yesterday. They died of an unrelated medical condition and had tested positive for Covid.
• A person in Dunedin who died of an unrelated medical condition yesterday while receiving palliative care had tested positive for Covid.
• Two patients died in Middlemore Hospital, on March 1 and February 27. Both people had unrelated medical conditions and had tested positive for Covid.

Of the new community cases, 18,779 were from Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) and 3748 were from PCR tests. 

The regional breakdown of cases is: 515 cases in Northland, 13,252 in Auckland, 1674 in Waikato, 1,248 in Bay of Plenty, 464 in Lakes, 325 in Hawke's Bay, 364 in MidCentral, 79 in Whanganui, 257 in Taranaki, 155 in Tairāwhiti, 69 in Wairarapa, 1356 in Capital and Coast, 577 in Hutt Valley, 304 in Nelson Marlborough,1163 in Canterbury, 63 in South Canterbury, 632 in Southern, 16 in West Coast and 14 that is unknown. 

There were eight cases at the border, with one confirmed and seven deemed probable. 

On vaccinations the Ministry of Health said yesterday there were 315 first doses administered, 743 second doses; 99 third primary doses; 15,195 booster doses; 1,150 paediatric first doses and 223 paediatric second doses. 

Managing symptoms at home 

Auckland community testing sites were seeing heavy demand, said Northern Regional Health Coordination Centre's chief clinical officer Andrew Old during a regional update. 

He thanked people for their patience with testing staff and said it was very important people who tested positive via a RAT entered their result on My Covid Record. 

Clinical immunologist and allergist Dr Anthony Jordan said the most important thing to reinforce was that Covid as an Omicron strain was a much milder strain than what we had experienced in the past. 

Jordan said there were systems in place for those who began to feel worse. As hospital demand increases, as Covid-19 case numbers increase and some staff are required to isolate at home, more demand was being put on the system. 

He apologised to anyone who was experiencing disruptions in their planned care due to the Covid-19 situation. 

Jordan said a broad range of care options were available to those in the community needing care - including establishing four care hubs in Auckland. 

He acknowledged the people in the health care sector that were doing their day to day work as well as supporting the Covid-19 response. 

He asked people who were able to, to manage their cold and flu symptoms at home like they normally would to leave hospitals and emergency departments for those who needed it most. 

Primary care co-clinical lead for whānau HQ Dr Christine McIntosh says all health care for Covid related conditions would be free. 

Māori and Pasifika coordination hubs had been established, she said. 

McIntosh said primary care and urgent care were feeling the pressure across the system as their practices were impacted by staff shortages and case number increased. 

McIntosh said she recognised some people may feel anxious with the high case numbers but wanted to remind people that Omicron was a mild illness. 

But it was important to stress that if people's symptoms became severe, such as chest pains, dizziness or difficult breathing, they called for help, they called 111. 

Old said the important thing with testing and RATs, health officials didn't have as good of a picture of people who were taking tests, compared to PCR testing. 

Regarding stockpiling, there was a lot of supply in the country, Old said. 

"If you don't need to get tested, then don't get tested." He added there is confidence that there are sufficient tests available. 

RATs were not as sensitive for PCR. For those that had ongoing symptoms, but were returning negative results, especially two negative RATs, should then seek a PCR test. 

Re-test 

The Ministry of Health said in a statement it was seeing reports of people who are symptomatic that are testing negative for Covid-19 in their initial test but later returning a positive test. 

"Our advice is that even if you receive a negative test, you should stay at home until well and retest if symptoms persist or worsen." 

It also advised wearing a mask when people were out and about. 

Masks reduced the risk of a person both catching and spreading the virus, said the ministry. 

The ministry said more than 130,000 orders were placed through the RAT requester site for free Rapid Antigen Tests yesterday, covering more than half a million people, or about 2 million tests. 

"The Ministry wants to reassure people that we have enough RATs to help New Zealand through a widespread Omicron outbreak in the coming months. Over the past week, 8.8m million RATs have been distributed. Over the weekend, another 8m RATs are expected to arrive in the country with another 99 million confirmed for delivery this month." 

Peak coming 

Most people, including children, were expected to be able to safely recover and isolate at home with only those who were very unwell needing hospital-level care. 

With nearly 80,000 new cases in the community over the past four days and modellers predicting cases to worsen in coming weeks, a push has begun to get the near million people who are yet to have their booster shots vaccinated. 

The number of people getting boosted continues to slump with just 17,963 doses administered on Wednesday. 

It comes as experts now expect New Zealand's Omicron peak to occur within a fortnight. 

And the peak in hospitalisations is expected to occur another two weeks after that, says the Ministry of Health, meaning the country could be on a downward slide as soon as the end of the month. 

At the same time, around 900 New Zealanders from around the globe will be arriving at Auckland Airport tomorrow with no need to complete an isolation period. Those arriving this afternoon and tonight will only need to isolate for a few hours. 

For the first time in nearly two years, fully vaccinated New Zealand residents and citizens flying in will no longer need to complete a mandatory stint in isolation. 

It follows the lift of isolation restrictions for Australian travellers earlier in the week. 

Yesterday there were 146,527 active Covid-19 cases in the community but experts believe the true count could be as high as half a million, or one in 10 New Zealanders, with many unreported positive results and others being asymptomatic. 

Director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield said just over 1 per cent of the population were active Covid cases for the period February 21-27. 

Meanwhile, figures from Covid Modelling Aotearoa expect actual infections to be about four times the number of reported cases. 

There have been 146,779 confirmed active cases in the past 21 days. That would indicate there have been around half a million actual Covid-19 infections in the country in the past three weeks. 
 
In Auckland, where the surge is exploding, would see about one in every five people infected. 

Yesterday's Covid-19 community cases were in Northland (520), Auckland (13,237), Waikato (1870), Bay of Plenty (1332), Lakes (537), Hawke's Bay (315), MidCentral (381), Whanganui (79), Taranaki (289), Tairāwhiti (134), Wairarapa (94), Capital and Coast (1487), Hutt Valley (642), Nelson Marlborough (271), Canterbury (1294), South Canterbury (53), Southern (615) and the West Coast (16).