Health director-general Ashley Bloomfield has caught Covid-19, the Ministry of Health says.
He returned a positive test result yesterday while attending the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, and is now self-isolating in Geneva. He is experiencing minor symptoms and his return back to New Zealand will be delayed. He was in attendance with Health Minister Andrew Little, who left for home ealier this week.
New case update
Meanwhile, the ministry has reported 6,862 new community cases and 25 Covid-19 related deaths today.
The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers today is 6,960 – last Friday, it was 8,032.
Of the deaths, 13 were female and 11 were male. The gender of one person was not reported. Five were from the Auckland region, three were from Northland, one was from Waikato, one was from Hawkes Bay, nine were from Canterbury, two were from the Wellington region, one was from Midcentral, one was from Bay of Plenty, and two were from Southern. One person was in their 30s, three people in their 40s, four in their 50s. two people in their 60s, four in their 70s, six in their 80s, and five were aged over 90.
The death total is now 1,127 and the seven-day rolling average of reported deaths at 13.
Of today's cases, Auckland is recording 2,292. Tai Rāwhiti, again, records the lowest new case numbers with 30, followed by Wairarapa (57), West Coast (60) and Whanganui (79). Canterbury is recording 1,078 new cases, Southern has 484 and just two cases are of unknown location.
Hospitalisations are at 350 today. There are 122 hospitalisations across the three Auckland DHBs (35 in Waitematā, 25 in Counties Manukau, 62 in Auckland). Elsewhere, Southern has 34, Lakes has five, Canterbury has 46 and Waikato has 23. Wairarapa has not included today's number, so yesterday's two hospitalisations are being included for today. Yesterday, Hutt Valley recorded an error of 34 hospitalisations. The correct number is four.
There are now under 50,000 (48,706) active cases in the community and 1,131,801 confirmed cases since the pandemic began. Some 90 imported cases were also detected.