There are 9405 new community cases of Covid-19 in the country in the last week, the Ministry of Health is reporting. There are 346 new cases in the Bay of Plenty reported in the past week.

Hospitals are caring for 134 people who are battling the virus, and four of them are receiving intensive care treatment.

In the last week, two deaths were linked to Covid-19.

Of the 25 people whose deaths were reported today, six were from the Auckland region, five were from Waikato, two were from Bay of Plenty, one was from Tairawhiti, one was from Taranaki, two were from MidCentral, two were from Canterbury, two were from West Coast and four were from Southern.

Last week 9975 new cases of Covid-19 were reported, and 9809 the week before that.

There were 33 deaths reported in last week's briefing that were linked to Covid-19, and 54 deaths reported for the week earlier.

A week ago there were 111 people in hospital with the virus, including seven in intensive care, and 166 people in hospital the week before, of which 8 were in intensive care.

Schools have reported large numbers pupils with serious truancy issues, with some saying some families had just "gone missing" and dropped off the radar.

Principals' Federation President Cherie Taylor-Patel said huge efforts had gone into bringing many of those back to school, but after the protests at parliament many families had an increased distrust for society, and were reluctant to put their kids back into school.

Local body elections held on Saturday resulted in less than a dozen'disinformation' campaigners being elected.

The government has released its latest child poverty report, which it said shows there have been some gains in improving the problem, despite the pandemic.

See RNZ's full data: Visualisations of Covid-19 figures.

- RNZ.