Seven straight days without a Covid case

New Zealand has completed a full seven-day period with no new Covid-19 cases and only one active case remains.

The Ministry of Health provided a statement updating daily case numbers at 1pm.

The total number of confirmed cases remains at 1,154, which is the number reported to the World Health Organization.

The combined total of confirmed and probable cases remains at 1,504.

There were seven additional recovered cases meaning this total is now 1,481. Only one case remains active.

There were no additional deaths to report.

There remained no-one in New Zealand receiving hospital-level care for COVID-19.

Yesterday laboratories completed 4,162 tests, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 275,852. 

At midday today the alert level 2 restrictions on social gatherings were eased, meaning groups of up to 100 can now gather at events such as church services and funerals.

On Thursday Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield announced no new Covid-19 cases - six days since a new case was discovered, a record since the start of the pandemic.

There were then only eight active cases in this country.

The total tally of confirmed and probable cases stands at 1504.

On Thursday it was announced 96-year-old Eileen Hunter, a resident at St Margaret's rest home, said the 96-year-old died "due to Covid-19" on May 24.

She became New Zealand's 22nd Covid-19 death.

Hunter's family believes she contracted the deadly virus during an outbreak that infected staff and patients.

Bloomfield said Hunter's death will now be treated as being related to Covid-19.

Hunter had been confirmed as having Covid-19 in April and recovered in hospital and had two negative test results since then, he said. Health officials believed she had recovered from the virus