There are 10,772 new Covid-19 cases in the community and 21 deaths to report, director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says.

There are also 788 people in hospital. One in 20 people reporting to a hospital has Covid.

"At this stage we are expecting an increase in cases and hospitalisations," Bloomfield said at this afternoon's Covid update.

Case rates and wastewater rates indicated that cases were increasing across the country.

There had been a "significant increase" in Covid cases due to the BA.5 variant, Bloomfield said. Case rates are now higher in people over 65.

Bloomfield said two cases of the B.A2.75 sub variant have been confirmed in the community.

At this stage, he said, there was no need to change current public health measures and there was no current evidence that suggests the variant leads to more severe illness.

With Covid-19 cases expected to rise in the coming weeks, Bloomfield called on people to take simple steps to protect themselves - vaccination, mask wearing and staying home if you are unwell.

22 meningococcal cases

Bloomfield said there have also been 22 meningococcal cases recorded, but at this stage there is not an outbreak of the disease.

He warned that the disease is severe and can lead to death. "Early intervention here can be life-saving."

Change to Covid death reporting

Public Health deputy director-general Dr Andrew Old said the agency will now report Covid deaths as people who died because of the virus or as a contributor.

Until now, all deaths where someone has died within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 result are reported, as had been done by other countries.

The updated approach would come into effect on the website from Friday and would be how the figures are reported to the World Health Organisation.

Officials would also continue to report deaths within 28 days of having Covid-19.

As of yesterday, there had been 1784 deaths overall – 772 were due to Covid-19 and Covid-19 was considered a contributing factor in a further 414. A total of 345 were not related to Covid and 286 deaths were yet to be classified.

Dr Old said the actual number of deaths using the new formula was 1252 cases where Covid-19 was the underlying or contributing factor to their death.

The ministry is also now reporting an additional 69 deaths within 28 days of having the virus.

These were cases that had Covid-19 but were not reported as deaths initally. All of the deaths have occurred since March 23.

Bloomfield encouraged those who were organising events to think carefully about the measures they could put in place to protect people, and advised people not to attend events if they were unwell.

He also strongly recommended schools introduce mask wearing for the first four weeks of the new term.

We need to "keep our wits about us" as sub variants spread overseas, Bloomfield said, and there was always a chance of a more severe variant emerging.

"There is still a global pandemic; it's not what's just happening in New Zealand, it's about what's happening globally.

"We're not out of the woods yet."

Bloomfield said around 72 per cent of people have had the first booster shot, and so far the uptake of the second booster has been good.

Around 30 per cent of those eligible have already had it, he said.

Bloomfield finishes in his role next week and said he was looking forward to a "good break".

His own leaving event tonight had been pared back due to the current outbreak, he said.

Last week, Bloomfield warned that the outbreak was expected to increase and peak in late July.

This morning the Green Party announced it was scrapping its annual conference in Christchurch this weekend and would instead hold it online, saying it was in response to the Covid-19 surge and concerns people would get infected at the conference.

Yesterday, 7612 new community cases were reported – down from days of more than 11,000 late last week. The seven-day rolling average of cases was 9689 - compared to 9281 cases at the same time last week.

However, weekend numbers tend to be lower and hospitalisations had risen to 797 people, including 20 in intensive care.

Newsroom has also reported the Ministry of Health will run a survey to try to get a clearer picture of the true extent of the outbreak.

Bloomfield said last week that wastewater testing indicated only half of the actual number of cases were being reported. He said that could be a combination of people either not testing or not reporting their positive results, and people who were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms so had not tested.