The Ministry of Health says there are 7627 new community cases today.

There are 827 people in hospital with the virus, including 24 in intensive care.

Nearly 100 people have died with Covid in the past three days as this week shapes up to be the deadliest of the pandemic to date.

Since Monday the Ministry of Health has announced the deaths of 99 people with yesterday proving one of the grimmest days of the outbreak with 45 deaths alone.

And despite community cases dropping by more than a 1000 in a week, those needing the highest level of hospital care is on the rise, worsening by the day to match rates not seen since March.

Health officials are warning the situation is not likely to ease for months and the Covid death toll will continue to climb.

The Ministry of Health will give the latest update on the Omicron outbreak in a statement at 1pm.

Yesterday there were 8730 new cases of Covid-19 and 808 people in hospital. Of those 25 were in intensive care.

It comes as outgoing director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield gave his final Covid-19 update yesterday, saying that the worse-case scenario outlined by modellers at the start of the wave was now "highly unlikely".

"What is apparent is that the worst-case scenario that our modellers had suggested a couple of weeks ago - with up to 1200 beds occupied, and over 20,000 cases a day - is now highly unlikely," Bloomfield said.

Although hospitalisation figures could reach 1000 occupied beds, the new modelling showed the country moving closer to a peak of about 850 – a point nearly reached last weekend.

But he warned we would keep seeing significant Covid deaths until cases dropped.

People who were not fully vaccinated were six times more likely to die from Covid, Bloomfield said, adding that getting boosted was vital.

Half of the Covid-related deaths of people between the ages of 20 and 60 could have been avoided if they were boosted, he said.

There are now 1427 deaths confirmed as attributable to Covid-19, either as the underlying cause of death or as a contributing factor. Most of these deaths have occurred in the past six months.

Middlemore Hospital chief executive Pete Watson said authorities were working hard to address the increased pressure on hospitals due to Covid and other winter illnesses. He expected that pressure to continue across the country for months.

Experts now believe New Zealand's first Omicron wave may have left the population with more immunity than first thought.

It was also possible the level of infection across the country during the first wave may have been higher than suspected.

BA.5 now makes up 61 per cent of the country's Covid cases. Health officials expect the variant will fully take over all other strains in the community by the end of August.