There are 23 new Covid deaths today and 11,560 new community cases. 

The Ministry of Health has also reported 678 people in hospital with the virus, including 30 in intensive care. 

On Monday, Cabinet will decide whether to shift the country - or select regions - from red to orange settings, which increase the number of people who can gather indoors. 

The latest case numbers today and tomorrow will be part of public health advice for Cabinet to consider before moving any parts of the country out of the red light setting. 

Under orange, there are no limits on indoor gathering sizes. 

The main thing they were looking for was an indication of where the country was "in terms of the overall peak", Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins said yesterday, when 13,475 new Covid cases and 17 deaths were reported. 

The seven-day rolling average of cases yesterday was 14,171 - down from 17,197 a week earlier - but the seven-day rolling average of deaths was 17 and threatened to soon set a grim record. 

According to Ministry of Health data, last week was the deadliest seven-day period of the outbreak with 84 deaths. 

Regional spread slow 

The Covid-19 outbreak in regional New Zealand is proving slower and longer than that of metropolitan centres, with a more sustained peak of Covid-19 cases, 

Auckland, Capital and Coast and Hutt Valley district health board areas, all confined to the cities, had experienced an outbreak where cases went up quickly, and were coming down quickly, director general of health Ashley Bloomfield said this week. 

Auckland metro cases were at 2392 yesterday, down from peaks in the high teens earlier in the outbreak and just ahead of Canterbury's total yesterday of 2122. 

There were 876 new cases in Capital and Coast and 483 in Hutt Valley yesterday, while smaller areas such as Hawke's Bay had 712, MidCentral 774 and Nelson Marlborough 578. 

The outbreak was developing more slowly and there was a more sustained peak in the regions, Bloomfield said. 

There was also a pattern of lower hospitalisation rates in the regions, he said. 

Tairāwhiti, for example, had the highest case rate in the country over the past two weeks, but had only ever had a handful of hospitalisations. 

Nationally, there were 764 people in hospital yesterday, 31 of them in intensive care. 

The unvaccinated continue to be over-represented in hospitals, and the vaccination rollout for Māori has again come under fire. 

Just over 88 per cent of Māori aged over 12 have received two doses of the vaccine and 57.7 per cent of those eligible have had a booster dose, compared to the national 12+ double-dose rate of 95.1 per cent and 72.7 boosted. 

Rates are also lagging for tamariki Māori, of whom 34.9 per cent have had one dose and 7.8 per cent two, far below the national 5 to 11 years' vaccination rate of 54 per cent for one dose and 17 per cent two doses. 

A new international misinformation study confirmed the alarm many were desperately trying to raise last year about the impact on Māori during the initial vaccine rollout, National Māori Pandemic Group co-leader Rawiri McKree Jansen said. 

The Journal of the Royal Society Interface study showed misinformation made it harder to stop illness from spreading during a pandemic, and conspiracy theories spread through communities already distrustful of authority. 

As the Māori population was younger, many had to wait to be eligible to get their vaccine dose, which was initially rolled out mostly by age, starting with oldest first. 

"They [were] exposed to a significant amount of misinformation for longer", McKree Jansen said. 

"That's created a problem for us in terms of getting the momentum for the vaccination programme into the right place." 

The unvaccinated were being hit hardest by the Omicron wave, and Māori were now dying with Covid-19 because of the misinformation they had been exposed to, McKree Jansen said. 

Those dying in Māori and Pacific communities were in their 40s, 50s and 60s, rather than older people in other populations. 

Māori and Pacific populations should have been prioritised in the vaccine rollout, he said. 

The Waitangi Tribunal has also released a scathing ruling of the government's Covid-19 response and vaccine rollout, saying Māori were put at risk. 

The tribunal said Cabinet's decision to go against official and expert advice and not prioritising Māori breached the Treaty principles of active protection and equity. 

Vaccination events targeting tamariki Māori and their whānau are underway today and tomorrow in Bay of Plenty. 

Iwi-led Covid-19 vaccination events were planned in Katikati, Tauranga, Te Puke, Kawerau, Ōpōtiki and Whakatāne today, the Ministry of Health said. More information was on the Bay of Plenty District Health Board website. 

Tauranga and Whakatāne would have events on Sunday as well, and parents and whānau could get vaccinated alongside their children. 

"There will be kai, stress-free spaces, and activities for everyone."