The number of COVID-19 cases in New Zealand has increased by 58 cases overnight, reaching a total of 647 cases.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said in an announcement today that the new cases are made up of 48 confirmed cases and 10 probable cases.
“Whilst this is a drop in numbers over the last day or two, I have no sense that this is a drop overall and our expectation is that number of cases will continue to increase.”
Dr Bloomfield says the drop in the number of cases, of 58 today, may reflect that there were lower numbers of tests done on Sunday.
“Our full expectation is that the number of cases will continue to increase over the coming seven to 10 days. Then our hope is they would start to decline, particularly if people start doing as asked of them and maintaining social distancing and isolation.”
Dr Bloomfieldd says have been no deaths overnight and 74 people have recovered from the virus.
There are 14 people in hospital with the virus including two in intensive care, but both in a stable conditionn.
The average number of tests being processed each day is 1777.
The Ministry of Health has found that the majority of cases are strongly linked to overseas travel.
Dr Bloomfield says 53 percent of current cases are linked to overseas travel, 29 percent are of people who have had close contact with confirmed cases and one to two percent are community transmission.
“We will expect the later proportion increase,” Dr Bloomfield says.
More to come.