There are 40,098 new community cases of COVID-19 and a further 35 virus-related deaths over the past week, the Ministry of Health has revealed.
The Health Ministry gave the update, which covered the seven-day period from Monday, December 5 to Sunday, December 11, on Monday.
The Health Ministry said 514 people remained in hospital with the virus, 14 of whom were in intensive care.
There are now a total of 2257 deaths confirmed as attributable to COVID-19, either as the underlying cause of death or as a contributing factor.
Overall, New Zealand has reported over 1.9 million COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began.
It comes after the Chief Ombudsman said the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment acted "unreasonably" in its advice to ministers over the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) voucher allocation system.
Last week the Health Ministry reported 34,528 new community cases, 40 virus-related deaths, 418 people in hospital and 10 in ICU.
