Eighteen new deaths of people with Covid-19 and 7068 new community cases have been reported in New Zealand today.

In today's statement, the Ministry of Health said the seven day rolling average was 7068, compared to 7512 this time last week.

There are 398 people in hospital - unchanged from yesterday - with the number of people in ICU rising by two to eight.

The 18 new deaths reported today include one person in their 40s, one in their 60s, five in their 70s; five in their 80s and six aged over 90. Nine were women and nine were men.

Two people were from Northland; four were from Auckland; three were from Waikato, one was was Lakes DHB, two were from Midcentral, two were from the Wellington region, one was form the West Coast, one was

from Canterbury, one was from South Canterbury and one from Southern.

The total number of publicly reported deaths of people with Covid is now 958.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed she had tested positive for Covid-19, after her partner Clarke Gayford and their daughter Never also tested positive earlier in the week. She will remain in

isolation for at least a week and will not attend this week's Budget announcement.

Today's new community cases were reported in the Northland (202), Auckland (2409), Waikato (507), Bay of Plenty (200), Lakes (120), Hawke's Bay (219), MidCentral (237), Whanganui (55), Taranaki (198),

Tairāwhiti (57), Wairarapa (75), Capital and Coast (459), Hutt Valley (228), Nelson Marlborough (209), Canterbury (1096), South Canterbury (105), Southern (619) and West Coast (69) DHBs.

There were also 62 new cases at the border.

There were 7441 new cases and 29 deaths reported yesterday.

New Zealand has now recorded a total of 1,033,0756 cases of Covid-19.

But Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said yesterday that the number of cases currently being reported is likely to be half of the number of actual cases.