New Zealand health authorities have reported 4126 new cases of Covid-19.

A further 13 Covid-related deaths have been announced.

There are 549 people in hospital with the virus, including 16 in intensive care.

Meanwhile at least 280,000 people have fallen ill with Omicron this winter as detections of Covid in wastewater dropped for the third week running.

With the weekly average rolling cases steadily dropping to under the 5000 mark along with fewer infected people in hospitals, the latest results from Environmental Science and Research show a similar trend.

The most recent data released from ESR reveals the level of Covid detected in wastewater across the country falling for a consecutive third week and aligning with new cases reported by the Ministry of Health.

The latest genomics dashboard also shows BA.5 continues to be the dominant variant, making up 86 per cent of cases in the most recent reporting week.

ESR said based on genomic surveillance it estimated there had been around 280,000 cases of BA.4 or BA.5 since June though this number should be considered at a lower bound taking into account sampling error and under-reporting of cases.

It also said a small number of BA.2.75 variants continued to be detected and monitoring would begin for a new BA.4.6 strain which was on the rise overseas.

The ministry is due to release an update on daily cases and deaths at 1pm.

The second Omicron wave continues to recede with community cases, hospitalisations and deaths all falling this week.

There are currently 33,230 active cases of the virus in the country, the lowest level since the highly infectious variant arrived in New Zealand sparking a major months-long outbreak in February.

Yesterday, there were 4818 new cases of Covid-19 and a further 24 Covid-related deaths.

The seven-day rolling average of cases is now at 4750, down from last Thursday when it was 6142.

There have now been 1726 deaths confirmed as attributable to Covid-19, either as the underlying cause of death or as a contributing factor. In the past seven days, there have been an average of 12 deaths a day, a rate that is also falling.

Yesterday, those in hospital with Covid also fell, with 571 people in wards across the country, including 13 who received intensive care treatment.

The weekly average of Covid-19 hospitalisations was 617. At the same time last week it was 748.

Meanwhile, a fourth case of monkeypox has been detected in New Zealand.

The Ministry of Health and Te Whatu Ora confirmed a person who had recently returned from overseas was currently isolating in the South Island following a positive test result.

As with the previous three cases of monkeypox in New Zealand, MoH regarded the risk of community transmission as low.

A third case of monkeypox was confirmed earlier this month after a person returned from international travel.

That person was also isolating in the South Island.

Two previous cases that have since recovered had been reported in New Zealand in July.