There have been 5202 new Covid-19 cases in the community and eight further deaths reported today, the Ministry of Health has said.

There are 332 people in hospital, down from 361 yesterday, including four in ICU.

The eight new deaths include one person in their 60s; four in their 70s; one in their 80s; and two aged over 90. Three were women and five were men. Two were from Bay of Plenty; one was from MidCentral; one was from the Wellington region; two were from Canterbury; one was from South Canterbury; and one was from Southern.

The total number of publicly reported deaths with of people with Covid-19 is now 1311.

Today's community cases were reported in the Northland (132), Auckland (1430), Waikato (351), Bay of Plenty (207), Lakes (70), Hawke's Bay (153), MidCentral (250), Whanganui (64), Taranaki (164), Tairāwhiti (19), Wairarapa (45), Capital and Coast (506), Hutt Valley (237), Nelson Marlborough (184), Canterbury (766), South Canterbury (84), Southern (410) and West Coast DHBs.

There were also 72 cases identified at the border.

There were 6297 new community cases reported in New Zealand yesterday, along with 10 more deaths.

New Zealand has now recorded 1,227,383 confirmed cases of Covid-19.

Earlier in the week, Ministry of Health lead science advisor Fiona Callaghan said currently the BA.2 variant was responsible for over 95 per cent of the reported community cases in New Zealand.

She said new variants - BA.4 and BA.5 - were "beginning to show early indications of increasing in prevalence".

The first pan-coronavirus vaccine could be on the market in a year's time, a University of Auckland vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris has said.

If such vaccines are successful these could be administered annual like the flu vaccine shots over the winter period.

More to come...

-RNZ.