New Hawke's Bay record: 138 cases for the region on Monday

Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) are expected to hit supermarket shelves from next week. Photo NZME

Hawke's Bay has 138 new cases of Covid on Monday - a new record.

The region had a record 136 reported cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, which was preceded by 106 cases on Saturday.

The Ministry of Health said the Hawke's Bay DHB area's vaccination rates stood at 97.2 per cent for first doses, second doses 95.1 per cent and boosted at 70.4 per cent.

There were also 32 active Covid cases in the Tararua district, which was out of a total of 754 cases in the MidCentral rohe.

Nationally on Monday, there were 14,633 community cases, with 344 in hospital, five of those in intensive care.

Meanwhile, Rapid Antigen Tests (RATS) are expected to hit supermarket shelves from next week.

The increased use of RAT testing was providing a greater sense of the level of confirmed cases in the community, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.

"Hospitalisations themselves will often tell you whether you're missing cases. But, at the moment, we're not vastly out of whack with what we've seen around the hospitalisation rates in other countries."

Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin told Newstalk ZB they had several hundreds of thousands of RATS on their way and expected them to be on the shelves next week.

Shoppers would be able to buy a five-pack for $32.99, which is $6.60 per test.

"We made a commitment at the beginning to sell these at our cost.

"We think our customers would really appreciate having them available."

He said supply chain teams and warehouse teams were feeling quite a bit of pressure, especially in Auckland and it was still early days.

"The guys are working miracles every day to keep up and to keep delivering."

The SPCA is urging pet owners to be cautious as some RATS may contain a substance that is toxic to animals.

Some RATS contain a small amount of the highly toxic chemical sodium azide and if animals were to consume the contents of multiple tests then they would be at greater risk of being poisoned, they said.