There are 2,846 new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand on Tuesday, the Department of Health announced.

The cases are in Northland (36), Auckland (1,802), Waikato (285), Bay of Plenty (86), Lakes (19), Hawke’s Bay (25), MidCentral (25), Whanganui (19), Taranaki ( 26), Tairāwhiti (17), Wairarapa (2), Capital and Coast (84), Hutt Valley (25), Nelson Marlborough (77), Canterbury (105), South Canterbury (4) and Southern (206).

There are 143 people hospitalized with the virus. One of them is in intensive care or in a high dependency unit.

The number is up from the 116 cases of Covid-19 hospitalized on Monday.

“With the rapid spread of Omicron in New Zealand, it is important that all eligible people receive a booster dose, which greatly reduces your risk of becoming seriously ill and requiring hospital care if you test positive for Covid. -19,” the ministry said in a statement. .

“This will reduce Covid-19 related hospitalizations and ensure our healthcare system has capacity for anyone in need of care.”

More than 27,770 doses of booster vaccine were administered across the country on Monday.

It adds to a total of 4.01 million first doses for people over 12, 3.95 million second doses for people over 12, 32,553 third primary doses, 2.19 million booster, 229,583 first pediatric doses for children and 1,962 second pediatric doses.

The ministry has urged Kiwis to book a booster if it has been three months since a second dose.

The ministry also continued to stress the importance of the right people being tested for Covid-19 – for the right reasons.

“Over the past week, a significant number of affected people who do not need testing will be getting tested – these are people who have no symptoms of Covid-19 and are not in contact with a case. .

“People should only get tested if they have cold or flu symptoms, if they have been identified as being in close contact with a case, or if they have been asked to get tested by a health care official. health.

“We anticipate continued high demand at our Covid-19 testing sites, so our request is, please be patient. Staff across the testing network are working around the clock, to process tests and return the results in a timely manner. We would like to thank them for their recent mahi.”

The ministry added that as demand for testing increased, some Covid-19 test results in Auckland and Waikato were taking longer to be processed in labs.

“The use of rapid antigen tests, alongside PCR tests, will improve this process at a time of exceptional demand in Phase 2, provided that Community Testing Center queues are freely available for those who really need ‘a test,’ the ministry said.

On Monday, 24,351 tests for the virus were processed in New Zealand.

Meanwhile, there were also 15 new cases of Covid-19 to report at the border on Tuesday. One is from the United Arab Emirates, while the travel history of the other 14 is yet to be determined.

This means there are now 35,771 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand since the start of the pandemic.

There are currently 18,628 active cases in the community.

As of Monday, there were 2,365 cases in New Zealand.