Monday December 20

Today there are 69 new community cases of Covid-19.

Of these, 59 are in Auckland, 7 in Waikato, 2 in Bay of Plenty, and 1 in Taranaki.

There are 62 people in hospital, with 7 of those people in intensive care or high dependency units.

The average age of people currently in hospital is 52.

94 percent of New Zealand's eligible population have had the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and 90 percent have had a second dose.

There have been 4,392,027 vaccine pass downloads, including 15,544 in the last 24 hours.

9 further cases of Omicron have been detected in international arrivals, taking the country's Omicron cases to 22. 

Of the total Omicron cases to date, all remain in managed isolation except for 1 case. This case has recovered and been released as they are no longer infectious.

Omicron was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) from South Africa on November 24.

It has a large number of mutations, some of which WHO says “are concerning”. 

Initial evidence shows there’s an increased risk of reinfection if you get it, and in South Africa, preliminary data also suggests there are increasing rates of hospitalisation for Omicron, however this may be due to more people being infected overall. 

Check out our full breakdown on the Omicron variant here.

Click here for a list of updated locations of interest.

Top Image: A Covid-19 poster outside international arrivals at a New Zealand airport. Photo: Getty Images (File photo)

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