New Zealand has reported a record-breaking 981 new COVID-19 cases on Monday as the highly contagious Omicron variant spreads through the community.
The vast majority of the new cases are in Auckland with 768 reported in the city of sails. Meanwhile, Waikato has 82 new cases, Bay of Plenty has 23, Northland has 21. Additionally Southern has 19 cases followed by Hutt Valley with 14, Lake and the Wairarapa with 12 each and Wellington and Tairawhiti with six. Hawke's Bay and MidCentral have five, Canterbury has four, Nelson Marlborough has two and South Canterbury and Taranaki have one each.
The seven day rolling average of cases is now 468 and 17,616 tests were taken in the past 24 hours.
There are currently 39 people in hospital with the virus - none in the ICU.
On Sunday 21,588 people received their booster shots bringing the total number of people to 1,912,046.
The Ministry of Health is urging Kiwis to get vaccinated as case numbers rise.
"The vaccine remains our best defence against COVID-19. People who are vaccinated are less likely to get seriously unwell or be hospitalised than people who haven’t been vaccinated," The Ministry said in its 1pm press release.
"The booster vaccine offers a high level of protection against Omicron, so if it’s been three months since you got your second dose, please get your booster as soon as possible. The Ministry of Health would like to thank everyone in New Zealand who has been vaccinated. You are doing your bit for the public health response."
The Ministry said the high cases numbers highlight how transmissible the Omicron variant is.
"That’s why as well as getting vaccinated and boosted, it’s vitally important that people also continue to do the basics well – staying home if you’re unwell, wearing a mask, physical distancing and scanning in using the NZ COVID Tracer app when you’re out and about.
"Anyone with cold or flu symptoms that could be COVID-19 is asked to get a test and isolate at home until a negative result is returned."
It comes after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told AM New Zealand could expect to move to phase 2 of the Government's Omicron plan when there are 1000 cases a day.
"Today we will be discussing as a Cabinet and with our public health officials the movement to phase 2. You will remember the time frames we put around that were cases so we said roughly in the order of when we hit 1000 [cases]. So now is the time to be having this discussion."
She said businesses could plan for the move within days.
