There have now been no new cases of COVID-19 reported in the Southland District Health Board region for six consecutive days.

The number of active cases is now just 22, with 192 cases now recovered.

Nationally there were just five new cases reported today – two confirmed and three probable. Of these one has a link to overseas travel, three have links to existing clusters and one is still under investigation, although there is a possibility it is linked to overseas travel.

There have now been 1456 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand, with 1095 people recovered from the virus.

One additional death was reported today, a man in his 60s who had underlying health conditions and was considered to be a probable case of COVID-19 based on his exposure history and clinical symptoms. He is the second resident of the Rosewood rest home’s hospital level wing to die from COVID-19 and brings the total number of deaths from the Rosewood cluster 10. There have been a total of 17 deaths in New Zealand.

Eight people are currently in hospital, including one in Middlemore Hospital’s intensive care unit.

The latest World Health Organisation situation report shows the number of confirmed cases worldwide has now passed 2.5 million to reach 2,544,792 confirmed – 73,657 of those in the previous 24 hours. There have been 175,694 deaths, 6689 in the previous 24 hours.