There are 6,407 community cases of Covid-19 across New Zealand.

There are 1129 cases in Canterbury.

368 (nationwide) are in hospital and there have been two deaths.

Today’s seven-day rolling average of community case numbers is 7,479 – last Monday, it was 7,553.

Omicron BA.5 variant update

A further two people who have travelled from overseas to New Zealand have been confirmed as having the BA.5 variant of Omicron.

Both people travelled to New Zealand and subsequently returned a positive RAT and PCR results.

Whole genome sequencing subsequently confirmed the BA.5 variant.

Following the first BA.5 case reported on Sunday, there are now three people who are confirmed to have the variant, all of whom travelled from South Africa.

Both BA.4 and BA.5 have been reported in Southern Africa and Europe, and both variants have been detected in Australia. 

The arrival of the BA.5 sub-variant in New Zealand is not unexpected the Ministry said.

“At this stage, the public health settings already in place to manage other Omicron variants are assessed to be appropriate for managing BA.5 and no changes are required.”

The BA.5 Omicron subvariants is being monitored by the World Health Organization (WHO).

It can take weeks or months to assess the severity of each new variant or sub-variant, so the Ministry of Health will continue to monitor the emerging evidence closely.

COVID-19 deaths

Today the Ministry of Health reported the deaths of two people with COVID-19.

These deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths with COVID-19 to 862 and the 7-day rolling average of reported deaths is 15.

Of the people whose deaths we are reporting today; one person was from Wairarapa and the other was from Whanganui.

Both were men and in their 80s.