There are 103 new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand today.
Video / NZ Herald
A senior staffer in the Prime Minister's office has returned a negative Covid test as Jacinda Ardern and Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro still face a nervous wait for test results.
The Prime Minister and Dame Cindy were among passengers asked to self-isolate after being on a flight with a positive case.
Ardern is in isolation until tomorrow, and had a PCR Covid test first thing on Sunday.
Her results are yet to come in, but the PM's chief press secretary Andrew Campbell, who was on the flight with her, told the Herald this morning he'd had a negative result.
As Ardern and Dame Cindy continue to isolate, New Zealanders have been told they should expect Covid-19 cases to roughly double every three days from now on and to assume all new infections are Omicron.
It comes as 103 new community cases of the virus were recorded in New Zealand yesterday, and one new death.
LISTEN LIVE TO NEWSTALK ZB
The Ministry of Health says the person who died was in their 70s, had a number of underlying health conditions and had been receiving appropriate ward-level care at Auckland's North Shore Hospital.
The ministry did not say how many of yesterday's cases had been confirmed as Omicron.
There is usually a lag before officials confirm through whole-genome sequencing whether a person has caught the Delta or Omicron variant.
But it's likely many of the community cases will be Omicron given the new variant is much more transmissible and has rapidly become dominant wherever it has taken hold.
Fifty-six of the new cases are in Auckland, and another 40-odd cases have also been found but won't be recorded until today due to a technical glitch.
Others are spread across Northland, Waikato, Tairāwhiti, Bay of Plenty, Lakes, Hawke's Bay, MidCentral, Taranaki, Wellington, and Nelson-Tasman.
Mask-wearing on Queen St, Auckland CBD, as the Government announces a move back to red in the traffic light system due to the outbreak if the Omicron variant. Photo / Alex Burton
And a raft of new locations of interest have been published by the Ministry of Health. They include Sea Life Kelly Tarlton's Cafe in Orakei, a popular South Auckland pool, Intercity bus trips between Gisborne, Napier and Wellington, a Napier restaurant, a Whakatane hairdressing salon and a Rotorua badminton hall.
Flight JQ259 Auckland to Wellington on Sunday, January 23, was also announced as a high-risk exposure event. Those who were on board had been exposed for one hour between 10.30am and 11.30am.
In Auckland, 891 people are isolating at home, including 288 cases. There are 11 people in hospital with Covid, with an average age of 58. None are in ICU or HDU.
Public health teams are continuing to manage Omicron cases in the community, the ministry said.
"We are expecting the number of cases connected to the Soundsplash music festival in Hamilton last weekend to grow over the coming days as further test results are received. The Ministry of Health is continuing to advise all attendees to get a test, if they have not already done so."
Everyone in New Zealand was asked to act as if Omicron was circulating in their community.
"That means wearing a mask, physical distancing and scanning in using the Covid-19 Tracer app, when you're out and about."
The most common early symptoms of Omicron were a sore or scratchy throat, and a runny nose. People with these symptoms, should get a test, and stay at home until receiving a negative result.
Professor David Murdoch. Photo / Supplied
On Saturday, 9108 children aged between 5-11 received a vaccine dose, bringing the total to 159,296.
There were also 30,146 booster doses received, with 1,287,972 people now boosted.
Overall 96 per cent of over-12s have had a first dose of the vaccine, including 764 people who got their first dose on Saturday.
And 94 per cent have had a second dose including 1300 from Saturday.
University of Otago expert in infectious diseases, Professor David Murdoch, said Kiwis should not be reassured by the stagnancy of Omicron numbers the past few days, and says the outbreak is tracking as expected.
"We're seeing a progressive outbreak and I don't think it mitigates any concern. We're just expecting the numbers to increase quite dramatically. There's every indication that's going to happen," Murdoch said.
"It's nice to see we haven't seen the explosion in detected cases but we need to be aware that may still come."
Murdoch said although "it's good" only seven people are hospitalised with Covid-19 and none are in ICU, the sheer rate of Omicron spread will still cause trouble for the health system.
"Fortunately we are seeing lots of evidence coming through that the proportion of those infected with severe disease [from Omicron] is relatively low, and a lot of them are asymptomatic," Murdoch said.
"That data is coming out all the time. The concern of course is even if the proportion of severe disease is low, if there are just so many numbers, the number [with severe disease] will still be high if there's suddenly a massive outbreak. It's just simple maths."
