There are currently 20 active cases of COVID-19 in the Southern District Health Board area, from a total of 126 cases reported since the outbreak began.

More than a week has now passed since any new cases were reported in the south.

Nationally, 78% of the cases reported have now recovered. However, there were still nine new confirmed and probable cases reported in New Zealand today, and five new cases yesterday.

Today’s cases bring the total to 1470, of which 1142 have recovered and 18 people have died.

There are seven people in hospital, unchanged from yesterday. This total includes one person in the intensive care unit at Middlemore Hospital.

The World Health Organisation’s situation report released overnight shows 2,719,897 confirmed cases worldwide, up 93,716 on the previous 24 hours. There have been 187,705 deaths from COVID-19 – 5767 of those in the previous 24 hours.