There are 23 Covid-related deaths reported today and 14,120 new cases in the community.

There are 692 people in hospital, including 30 in intensive care.

The 23 people whose deaths are reported today included those who had died over the past nine days, the Ministry of Health said in today's 1pm update.

Of the people whose deaths were reported today, eight people were from the Auckland region, six from Waikato, two from Bay of Plenty, two from Lakes, one from Whanganui, two from the Wellington region, one from Canterbury, and one from Southern.

One person was aged in their 40s, five in their 60s, two in their 70s, eight in their 80s, and seven were over-90.

These deaths take the total number of publicly reported deaths with Covid-19 to 428 and the seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 18.

The average age of the 692 people in hospital is 58.

They cases in hospital are in Northland (31), Waitemata (105), Counties Manukau (127), Auckland (101), Waikato (77), Bay of Plenty (35), Lakes (14), Tairāwhiti (two), Hawke's Bay (28), Taranaki (11), Whanganui (four), MidCentral (21), Wairarapa (two), Hutt Valley (15), Capital and Coast (15), Nelson Marlborough (13), Canterbury (49), South Canterbury (eight), West Coast (five) and Southern (29) hospitals.

There are currently 89,477 active community cases in total in the country. Active cases are those that were identified in the past seven days and are not yet classed as recovered.

The ministry said the slight increase in community case numbers from yesterday was not unexpected as there tended to be lower testing and reporting over the weekends.

The location of today's community cases are in Northland (713), Auckland (2351), Waikato (1217), Bay of Plenty (742), Lakes (365), Hawke's Bay (693), MidCentral (773), Whanganui (337), Taranaki (556), Tairāwhiti (178), Wairarapa (128), Capital and Coast (902), Hutt Valley (489), Nelson Marlborough (577), Canterbury (2225), South Canterbury (279), Southern (1456) and the West Coast (127).

The location of 12 cases is not known.

Meanwhile, there have been 48 Covid-19 cases detected at the border.

Of today's community cases, 13,882 were identified using RATs and 238 were found using PCR testing.

There continued to be a decline in the seven-day rolling average of cases. Today's seven-day average is 12,785, while last Tuesday it was 15,565.

"Vaccination is still our best defence against Covid-19 and getting boosted is an important way people can protect themselves, their whanau and their friends from the virus," the ministry said.

"If you are due for a vaccination, whether it is your second shot or booster, please make an appointment today."

Yesterday the Government decided to keep the country at the red alert level setting, keeping indoor gathering limits to 200, to reduce pressure on the stretched health system.

From today controversial vaccine passes will no longer be required, and Government-enforced vaccine mandates will be limited to the health and disability, aged-care, Corrections and border workforce sectors.

In advising the Government to retain the red setting, director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said while case numbers were generally tracking down there were still more than 700 people in hospital with Covid-19.

In Auckland, while the outbreak had moved well past the peak there were still about 350 in hospital, and the three DHBs still made up the highest hospitalisation rates in the country per capita.

Bloomfield said daily admissions had declined in Auckland but there were still about "20 to 30" new admissions among those DHBs alone.

A move to orange was not about a number but the trend, he said.

It was important to protect Auckland's healthcare system, partly because the city had some of the country's most specialised health services.

Bloomfield said there was still a "long tail" of hospitalisations and "Auckland is part of a national hospital network".

"It's less about the case numbers and more about the hospitalisations."

He said it was important to note only about 1 per cent of cases ended up in hospital, and many others were being cared for at other health providers such as clinics and GPs.

Doctors and nurses have been raising concerns in recent weeks about the pressures on the stretched health system, with the added issue of staff contracting the virus.

Meanwhile the World Health Organisation is warning of a new Covid strain which appears to be 10 per cent more transmissible than BA.2 Omicron.

The new XE variant is a mutation of the BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron strains and regarded as a "recombinant", being formed from at least two other viral sources.

XE was first detected in Britain in January.

Bloomfield said today if XE arrived in this country health chiefs would need to look at its characteristics and whether they needed to impose stricter rules such as limiting indoor gatherings to keep the numbers down to a manageable level.