There have been 8638 new community cases and 24 further deaths of people with Covid-19 in the past two days, the Ministry of Health has revealed.

There was no Covid-19 data released yesterday due to the public holiday. In today's statement, the Ministry said there are now 316 people in hospital, up from 300 on Thursday, with four in ICU.

The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers today is 4737, down from 5154 this time last week.

The total number of publicly reported deaths of people with Covid-19 is now 1455.

The 24 new deaths reported today include one person in their 50s, one in their 60s, four in their 70s, 11 in their 80s and seven aged over 90. Thirteen were male and 11 were female.

Six were from the Auckland region, three were from Waikato, three were from Hawke's Bay, one was from Bay of Plenty, three were from Taranaki, one was from Wairarapa, one was from the Wellington region, two were

from Nelson-Marlborough, three were from Canterbury, and one was from Southern.

Today's new community cases were reported in the Northland (217), Auckland (2693), Waikato (522), Bay of Plenty (295), Lakes (131), Hawke's Bay (256), MidCentral (256), Whanganui (94), Taranaki (195), Tairāwhiti (76),

Wairarapa (99), Capital and Coast (811), Hutt Valley (338), Nelson Marlborough (343), Canterbury (1401), South Canterbury (93), Southern (723) and West Coast (90).

There were also 211 cases reported at the border in the past two days.

There were 12 deaths and 5285 cases reported on Thursday.

New Zealand has now recorded 1,296,728 cases of Covid-19.