Today we are reporting 5,662 community cases, 490 hospitalisations and nine deaths. Today’s seven-day rolling average is 8,435, and the seven-day rolling average of cases as at last Sunday was 8,170.
Border case with Omicron XE variant New Zealand’s first known detection of the Omicron XE variant was reported yesterday. XE has been spreading overseas and its arrival in New Zealand is not unexpected.
At this stage, the public health settings already in place to manage other Omicron variants are assessed to be appropriate for managing XE and no changes are required.
XE is a combination of BA.1 and BA.2 sub variants of Omicron. There is some early evidence that it may be slightly more transmissible than BA.2, which is more transmissible than BA.1.