Data shows New Zealand is currently reporting more COVID-19-related deaths per million people than the likes of the US and UK as the Omicron BA.5 variant sweeps through the country.
The statistics compiled by Our World in Data, which allows people to compare COVID-19 figures from across the world, shows that on July 13, New Zealand had 3.79 daily coronavirus-related deaths per million people - compared to the UK and US' respective July 13 figures of 1.83 and 1.56.
During the initial stages of the Omicron outbreak earlier this year, the US' daily death rate peaked on February 10 at 7.74 average deaths per million people, compared to the UK's 2022 peak on April 25 of 4.88 per million.
New Zealand is now at its highest daily per million death rate since the pandemic began. The next highest it reached was 3.68 per million people on April 3.
As of July 13, New Zealand had the sixth highest daily COVID-related deaths per million in the world only behind Malta (3.8), Monaco (3.89), San Marino (4.23) Gibraltar (4.37) and St Kitts and Nevis (6).
But in terms of cumulative COVID-related deaths per million, New Zealand hadn't made a dent; 330.82 compared to the US' 3035.11 and UK's 2701.52.
With COVID-19 cases rising again, the New Zealand Government on Thursday announced a suite of measures to tackle the crisis - including making three antivirals available for anyone aged over 75 who has tested positive for the virus.
"What we are seeing globally is the number of new weekly cases has increased week-on-week over the last month, after previously declining since March 2022," Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said on Thursday.
"This is happening even though we know that testing rates have dropped in a number of countries, especially in the Northern Hemisphere.
"It's quite clear this is being driven by these new BA.4 and, particularly, BA.5 subvariants of Omicron and we're seeing a very similar pattern to what we're experiencing here in a number of Australian states," Dr Bloomfield said.
As of Thursday, there were nearly 69,000 active COVID-19 cases in New Zealand, the Ministry of Health said.
"The seven-day rolling averages have increased for all three [cases, hospitalisations and deaths] in the last week," Dr Bloomfield said.
As of Thursday, 765 people were in the hospital with COVID-19 and Dr Bloomfield said the seven-day rolling average of hospitalisations was 673 - up from 474 the previous week.
In terms of booster jabs, 1026 third doses were administered on Wednesday and 15,573 eligible people received their fourth dose.
The Ministry of Health said about 138,735 children had received two doses of the paediatric vaccine.
Rapid antigen tests and masks were also made even more widely available on Thursday - now completely free for everyone.
COVID-19 Response Minister Ayesha Verrall said the current winter was one of the toughest the health sector had faced.
