Congratulations New Zealand – we’ve reached the milestone of 90 percent fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

As of 11.59pm yesterday, 3,789,662 of the 4,209,057 eligible New Zealanders aged 12 and over were fully vaccinated, with 3,969,267 (or 94%) partially vaccinated.

Today Whanganui has become the latest DHB to reach 90% partially vaccinated.

Seven DHBs in total have also now reached the 90% fully vaccinated mark, with a number of others expected to reach this milestone in the coming days.

Testing update

More than 82,000 rapid antigen tests have been dispatched to 531 pharmacies to date.

As of this morning, 256 of these pharmacies have received their tests and a significant number of those remaining are expected to receive their tests by the end of today.

Recent severe weather has disrupted deliveries to some pharmacies. We are working with our courier services to ensure deliveries can be made as soon as possible, with orders being prioritised for city centres, travel junctions and vacation hot spots.

All unvaccinated people who are asymptomatic and require surveillance COVID-19 testing for travel need to get a supervised rapid antigen test from a pharmacy, within 72 hours of travel.

This testing is for people over the age of 12 years and 3 months who are not fully vaccinated and do not have COVID-19 symptoms. This includes unvaccinated people travelling out of Auckland.

Rapid antigen testing at pharmacies is currently only available at no cost for people who are not yet vaccinated and need to get tested for travel.

Anyone with any COVID-19 symptoms is asked to get a PCR test at a community testing centre or their GP and to stay home until a negative result is returned.

The location and hours of pharmacies offering rapid antigen tests will be available from Healthpoint.

COVID-19 vaccine update

• Vaccines administered to date (percentage of eligible people): 3,957,272 first doses (94%); 3,775,269 second doses (90%); 22,754 third primary doses; 184,377 booster doses
• Vaccines administered yesterday: 2,417 first doses; 8,156 second doses; 1,708 third primary doses and 15,979 booster doses.
• Māori (percentage of eligible people): 493,657 first doses (86%); 435,410 second doses (76%)
• Pacific Peoples (percentage of eligible people): 267,554 first doses (93%); second doses 249,913 (87%)

Vaccination rates by DHB with active cases (percentage of eligible people)

• Northland DHB: First doses (88%); second doses (82%)
• Auckland Metro DHBs: First doses (95%); second doses (92%)
• Waikato DHB: First doses (93%); second doses (88%)
• Bay of Plenty DHB: First doses (93%); second doses (86%)
• Lakes DHB: First doses (91%); second doses (85%)
• Taranaki DHB: First doses (92%); second doses (87%)
• Whanganui DHB: First doses (90%); second doses (84%)
• Hawke’s Bay DHB: First doses (94%); second doses (88%)
• Nelson-Marlborough DHB: First doses (94%); second doses (89%)
• Canterbury DHB: First doses (97%); second doses (93%)

Hospitalisations

• Cases in hospital: 58; North Shore: 9; Auckland: 27; Middlemore: 17; Waikato: 2; Tauranga: 2, Christchurch: 1
• Vaccination status of current hospitalisations (Northern Region wards only): Unvaccinated or not eligible (30 cases / 57%); partially immunised <7 days from second dose or have only received one dose (9 cases / 17%); fully vaccinated at least 7 days before being reported as a case (10 cases/ 19%); unknown (4 cases / 8%)
• Average age of current hospitalisations: 49
• Cases in ICU or HDU: 4 (2 in Auckland; 2 in Middlemore)

Cases

• Seven day rolling average of community cases: 84
• Number of new community cases: 91
• Number of new cases identified at the border: 4
• Location of new community cases: Auckland (55), Waikato (7), Bay of Plenty (10), Lakes (1), Taranaki (16).
• Number of community cases (total): 10,054 (in current community outbreak)
• Number of active cases (total): 2,220 (cases identified in the past 21 days and not yet classed as recovered)
• Confirmed cases (total): 12,868
• Cases epidemiologically linked (total): 7,412

Contacts

• Number of active contacts being managed (total): 6,875
• Percentage who have received an outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements): 84%
• Percentage who have returned at least one result: 77%

Tests

• Number of tests total (last 24 hours): 28,946
• Tests rolling average (last 7 days): 25,059
• Auckland tests total (last 24 hours): 11,270

Wastewater

A wastewater sample collected from Gisborne on 14 December detected the COVID-19 virus. This is the sixth positive wastewater result for Tairāwhiti in recent weeks, indicating there may be unknown cases in the community.

Anyone who has symptoms – no matter how mild – is asked to get tested, even if they are vaccinated - and stay home until they return a negative test result. For all testing locations, please visit the Healthpoint website.

There are no other new, unexpected wastewater results to report.

NZ COVID Tracer

• Poster scans in 24 hours to midday yesterday: 2,966,020
• Manual diary entries in 24 hours to midday: 40,291

My Vaccine Pass

• My vaccine pass downloads total: 4,299,816
• My vaccine pass downloads (last 24 hours): 38,774