Saturday March 12
There are 18,699 new cases of Covid-19 today.
Of these, 670 are in Northland, 6,077 in Auckland, 1,700 in Waikato, 1,247 in Bay of Plenty, 496 in Lakes, 730 in Hawke’s Bay, 667 in MidCentral, 162 in Whanganui, 462 in Taranaki, 377 in Tairāwhiti, 169 in Wairarapa, 1,545 in Capital and Coast, 937 in Hutt Valley, 424 in Nelson Marlborough, 2,028 in Canterbury, 118 in South Canterbury, 848 in Southern, 32 in West Coast, and 10 at unknown locations.
This brings the total number of active cases to 206,288.
The Ministry of Health defines active cases as those identified in the last 10 days and not yet classified as recovered.
There have been 7 deaths today.
Three were in Auckland, and one each in Bay of Plenty, MidCentral, Wellington and Canterbury.
This brings the total number of Covid-19 related deaths in New Zealand to 105.
One person was in their 50s, two were in their 70s, two were in their 80s, and two were in their 90s. Four were male and three were female.
The Ministry of Health says out of respect for the families they will not be making further comment.
There are 853 people in hospital, with 17 of those people in intensive care or high dependency units.
You must register your RAT result if you test positive
The Ministry of Health is reminding people it is essential to register your result if you get a positive rapid antigen test.
It says registering your result is the best way for public health officials to know where cases are across the country and where to best spread health resources, and it is important if your condition get worse and you need further healthcare.
You can register in My Covid Record.
Home isolation is now only 7 days
At midnight last night, the rules for home isolation changed. Now Covid-positive people only need to isolate for seven days following their positive test, instead of 10 days.
This applies to anyone isolating at the time of the change.
The new rules are:
If you test positive: you must isolate for seven days. You do not need to be retested. If you still have symptoms after seven days, stay home til you are better and wait another 24 hours.
If you are a household contact: do a RAT on days 3 and 7 of the isolation period of the first Covid-19 positive person in your house.
- If both tests are negative, you can leave isolation on day 8, as long as you have no symptoms
- If you test positive, isolate for 7 days. Other members of your household do not need to reset their isolation period - they can leave isolation on day 8 of the first case, as long as they have tested negative and do not have symptoms
If you've tested negative but feel sick or have symptoms, stay home until you feel better, and retest in 48 hours if you still have symptoms.
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