Covid: 2433 new cases reported in Canterbury

The Ministry of Health reported 20,802 new cases of Covid-19 in the community over the past week, with a further 41 deaths.

The Canterbury DHB area reported 2433 new cases and 3 deaths. Last week in South Canterbury he had 282 new cases.

Of the deaths reported today, 1 was in his 40s, 1 in his 50s, 3 in his 60s, 7 in his 70s, 15 in his 80s, and 14 in his 90s and older.

1 from Northland, 6 from Auckland area, 4 from Waikato area, 3 from Bay of Plenty, 3 from Lakes, 4 from Hawke’s Bay, 1 from Taranaki, 3 were from Mid-Central, five from the Wellington area, three from Canterbury, one from the West Coast, three from South Canterbury and four from the South.

As of midnight yesterday, 322 people were hospitalized with the virus, including eight in intensive care units.

The 7-day rolling average of community cases increased slightly to 2967. Of the cases announced today, 3173 were reinfections.

The 7-day moving average number of deaths attributed to Covid-19 is 2.

One Covid-19 expert says New Zealand may be at or near the peak of its latest number of cases.

The latest ESR analysis indicates that the Omicron subvariant, which is the main cause of winter waves, remains dominant. Country.

As experts told the Herald ahead of today’s Ministry of Health’s weekly update, the seven-day rolling case average was 2,964, slightly higher than a week ago, but daily cases declined in the past few days. was

Dr David Welch, a computational biologist at the University of Auckland, said that as the increase in reported cases appears to be slowing, “we are likely at or near the peak. ” he said.

The number of re-infections has been steadily increasing, now accounting for about 14% of reported cases, but most cases appear to be people who have been infected with the virus for the first time.

“That group is getting smaller and smaller. Even if it’s peaked, it wouldn’t be surprising given how difficult it is to find people who haven’t had the virus yet.”

Welch had previously noted that the latest increase observed since cases began rising in early October appeared to be consistent with the easing of restrictions in the previous month.

Still, he said he would not know if cases had peaked until there had been a sustained decline in reported infections over several weeks.

In New Zealand, one wave driven by behavioral factors could be seen, followed by another wave driven by newer subspecies, he added.

Dr. Dion O’Neale, a Covid-19 modeler, agreed with that possibility, noting a similar lack of surveillance data.

ESR’s latest subvariant report indicated BA.5. BA.5 accounted for 80% of the samples sequenced between October 15 and 28, and has been our mainstay since replacing Omicron’s cousin BA.2 about midway through the year. cyclic subvariant.

However, sampling representing about 2% of all reported Covid-19 cases, the relatively new BA.2.75 and BQ.1.1 appear to be on the rise, with 11 and 3 hospital cases sequenced, respectively. accounts for %.

Covid-19 Modeling Aotearoa’s O’Neale said the new variant appeared to be increasing the rate of infections in the Wellington area and it was unclear how much this represented the national situation. .

“Perhaps we are approaching the behavior-driven aspect of increasing case numbers at this point, and may switch to a more variant-driven increase,” he said.

“But it’s really hard to tell what’s happening in both right now, and what’s happening in different regions, because a lot of the data is pretty poor at the moment.

If the new subvariant caused more infections, the lack of genome sequencing and underreporting of cases would make it difficult to calculate the confirmed case rate, and the number of infections we don’t know about compared to known infections. You can see the number.

“There aren’t many cases where we’re doing whole-genome sequencing right now, so it can mask a lot of new variant effects.”

Dr. Gemma Geoghegan, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Otago, pointed out that there are indications that an overseas wave is coming from these new subspecies.

Although the limited data we had indicated that various subvariants circulated, her team looked closely at reinfection. This may indicate a new type that circumvents the immunity people gained from previous Omicron infections.

“I think reinfection will be the predominant type of case for some time to come, and this could drive the next bump,” Geoghegan said.

“But this is a very complicated situation, especially in New Zealand.”