New Zealand recorded eight Covid-related deaths on Sunday - the highest daily toll in the country since the pandemic began - as case numbers show infections are dropping in Auckland.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Health recorded 14,494 new community cases of Covid-19, and eight people died. In total there are 896 people in hospital, with 18 in intensive care.

Six of the eight Covid-related deaths were in Auckland, one in Waikato, and one in Lakes. Two of those who died were men and six were women. Three were aged in their 60s, one in their 70s, one in their 80s and three in their 90s.

That brings the total number of Covid-related deaths in the pandemic to 113.

"At this sad time, our thoughts are with the whānau and friends of all those who have died," the ministry said.

"Out of respect for affected families, we will be making no further comment."

Meanwhile, the country continues to see a fall in case numbers with the biggest drop in Auckland. Reported case numbers fell steadily last week from just under 10,000 reported cases on March 8 to 4509 yesterday.

However, the Ministry said the seven-day rolling average is 19,771, which is only slightly down on Saturday.

According to the ministry, there are 82,723 active cases across Auckland's three DHBs, with Counties Manukau recording the highest number of active cases.

Covid-19 modeller Professor Michael Plank says New Zealand's Covid cases are pretty much where they were expected to be, particularly hospitalisation numbers.

Models had been predicting 15-30,000 cases at this stage, he told TVNZ this morning.

"We're definitely in that ball park."

RAT testing was very useful because it returned a result so quickly, but what wasn't known was how many people were getting tested, and how many weren't uploading their results.

The estimate was that only one in three or four cases were getting tested, based on what had happened overseas, he said.

The rest of the country was still lagging behind Auckland but it remained to be seen if their peaks would be lower than Auckland, due to the size of the city.

"More rural areas or areas with smaller towns would be likely to be peaking at a lower level."

It was "pretty clear" that Auckland's cases were trending down. "Nationally, I think we're probably pretty close to a peak now."

Looking ahead a week, he expected to see peaks in other parts of the country as well.

However hospitalisations could keep rising for another week or so. And in Queensland - which had followed a similar trend to New Zealand - people were still in hospital months after the initial outbreak.

New Zealand would have been in a lot more trouble now if we did not have such good vaccination rates, he said.

"It's making a massive difference."

Plank said once we were sure we had seen the peak, hospitalisations were coming down and the health system was coping, what happened at the border was not so important.

Opening the border to tourists could be brought forward much earlier than October, as the number of Covid cases entering the country would not have much impact compared to cases already here.

Outside Auckland, the new cases were in Northland (440), Waikato (1420), Bay of Plenty (931), Lakes (394), Hawke's Bay (597), MidCentral (472), Whanganui (137), Taranaki (355), Tairāwhiti (289), Wairarapa (105), Capital and Coast (1141), Hutt Valley (845), Nelson Marlborough (376), Canterbury (1664), South Canterbury (93), Southern (703), and West Coast (18). The location of five cases was unknown.

There are 896 people in hospital, including in Northland (19), North Shore (174), Middlemore (214), Auckland (207), Waikato (78), Bay of Plenty (34), Lakes (11), Tairāwhiti (3), Hawke's Bay (24), Taranaki (8), MidCentral (19), Hutt Valley (16), Capital and Coast (36), Wairarapa (7), Nelson Marlborough (5), Canterbury (26) and Southern (15). There are no hospitalisations in Whanganui.

Unvaccinated people over 12 were five times over-represented in those figures, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, in Canterbury, some health services are being deferred due to DHB staffing issues. Canterbury's COVID-19 Emergency Co-ordination Centre controller, Dr Helen Skinner, said as of Monday the DHB would only go ahead with urgent surgery.

"Some outpatient appointments are also being postponed this week. Many have already been switched to virtual consults and are carried out over the phone or by video call, however, we have to postpone more planned in-person appointments this week," Skinner said.

However, she urged people not to hesitate to seek health advice if needed.
"Our hospitals and health centres have the highest level of infection, prevention and control measures in place and we encourage everyone to continue to seek the care they need when they need it."

The eight deaths announced yesterday follow the grim milestone of 100 deaths announced on Saturday - with four men and three women adding to virus deaths.

It was the second day in a row of seven deaths.

The ministry said it was another reminder that the Omicron variant could still cause serious illness or death - either directly, or by its impact on other health conditions.

"Getting vaccinated and boosted will help to keep you out of hospital if you catch Covid-19 and could save your life."