The Ministry of Health has changed the way it reports COVID-19 related deaths from Thursday.
It will automatically report a death if a person dies within 28 days of a positive test result.
As a result of this new reporting, during the past fortnight there have been nine additional deaths - bringing New Zealand's total pandemic death toll to 91.
There are 21,015 new COVID cases in the community on Thursday - more than 7000 of those in Auckland.
Hospitalisations have reached 773 with 16 in intensive care.
And case numbers at Auckland hospitals are higher than predicted - but the Government admits it doesn't know exactly how many infections are in hospital because of the virus or because of other illnesses.
There are 507 cases in hospital across the Auckland region on Thursday - more than the predicted peak of 400 per day.
"The number of cases in hospital is higher than earlier modelling projections had suggested at this point in time," Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told reporters.
But the way authorities define hospital cases has come under scrutiny - they include COVID cases who aren't being treated for the virus.
On Thursday morning, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins admitted he didn't know how many hospitalisations were actually sick with the virus or other illness.
"I don't have that data," he told AM. "It's one of the things that we've asked the health system to adapt how it records that so we get a bit more visibility of that."
Epidemiologist Michael Baker said it's vital to have that information.
"We've had two years to get this right and all of these data definitions really matter if you're trying to understand the impact of COVID-19 on our healthcare system," Prof Baker told Newshub.
Health officials later revealed about 75 percent of COVID cases in hospitals were there because of the virus - but that's based on overseas data.
Authorities have changed the way they record COVID-19 deaths. From Thursday, anyone who dies within 28 days of a positive test result will now be automatically reported and split into three categories; deaths clearly caused by COVID, those who died with COVID but the virus wasn't the cause of death and those with COVID whose cause of death is still under investigation.
As a result of this change, nine additional deaths from the past fortnight have been added - taking the total pandemic death toll to 91.
"These are people who might have died in [an] aged residential care facility," Dr Bloomfield said. "A GP might have notified [the] cause of death but it wasn't notified to our public health unit."
Meanwhile, as COVID hospitalisations continue to climb, there could be some light at the end of the Omicron tunnel.
"It may well be at the peak in Auckland and we're seeing that come through in hospitalisation and people in ICU," Prof Baker said.
