There are 2296 new community cases of Covid-19 across Canterbury on Friday.
Of those, 2160 were in the Canterbury District Health Board (DHB) area, and 136 were in the South Canterbury DHB area.
The Ministry of Health reported 20,989 new community cases nationwide.
Seven people had died including one in the Southern DHB area, which covers Otago and Southland.
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The Canterbury DHB reported a total of 15,215 cases in Canterbury as of Friday morning, with 10,202 of those in Christchurch.
On Thursday, there were 2130 new community cases in Canterbury, with 21,015 reported by the Ministry nationwide.
Of those cases, 2021 were reported in the Canterbury DHB area, and 109 were in the South Canterbury DHB area.
There were now four cases on the Chatham Islands, one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth. The Canterbury DHB confirmed it had recorded its first two cases on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the Omicron BA2 sub-variant is taking over from the BA1 sub-variant in New Zealand, as is happening around the world.
From Thursday, officials will be moving to a new reporting approach regarding Covid-19 deaths, counting all deaths within 28 days of a Covid-19 diagnosis. These will be broken into three categories, Bloomfield said.
The first category will be those who clearly died of Covid-19. As of today, nationally that number is 34.
The second group is those who were found to have had Covid-19 after they died, but whose cause of death was not caused by the virus – the confirmed number of which, as of Thursday, is two.
The third group is those whose deaths remain under investigation. As of Thursday, this was 48 people.
The self-isolation period for people with Covid-19 has also been shortened from 10 days to seven. This will come into effect from 11.59pm on Friday.
The change also applies to household contacts and people in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ).
A new community Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) pick up point also opened in Rolleston on Wednesday. It would be open Monday to Friday from 11am to 7pm, and from 10am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday until further notice, the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) said.
Other collection points for RATs in Canterbury are: