Director of health Ashley Bloomfield, who reads the numbers that will define how the rest of this year plays out (Illustration: Simon Chesterman)
Director of health Ashley Bloomfield, who reads the numbers that will define how the rest of this year plays out (Illustration: Simon Chesterman)

Covid-19April 6, 2020

Covid-19: New Zealand cases mapped and charted, April 6

Contributing writer
Director of health Ashley Bloomfield, who reads the numbers that will define how the rest of this year plays out (Illustration: Simon Chesterman)
Director of health Ashley Bloomfield, who reads the numbers that will define how the rest of this year plays out (Illustration: Simon Chesterman)

The latest in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall.

This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff Members

These posts collate the most recent statistics and presents them as charts and maps. The Ministry of Health typically publishes data updates in the early afternoon, which describe the situation at 9am on the day of release. These data visualisations are interactive – use your mouse or thumb to hover over each graph for more detail.

Note for users of The Spinoff App: if the charts below are not appearing, please click here to launch in a separate browser window. An update is imminent!

This afternoon’s Ministry of Health figures report that the total number of confirmed and probable cases stands at 1,106 (911 confirmed and 195 probable). A total of 176 people have recovered, an increase of 20 over the last 24 hours.

The ministry reported averaging 2,846 Covid-19 lab tests per day during the week ending April 5. Yesterday 3,709 tests were processed. A total of 39,918 lab tests have been conducted since March 9. There are 44,571 lab testing supplies in stock.

The ministry also reports that one new laboratory, Pathlab Tauranga, started testing on Saturday, April 4.

Several people got in touch over the week to request a chart that compares active and recovered cases. Active cases are people who currently have the Covid-19 virus. Recovered cases are people who had the virus, but are at least 10 days since onset and have not exhibited any symptoms for 48 hours. Although the ministry does not supply the number of active cases, we can calculate it with the following formula:

ACTIVE = CONFIRMED/PROBABLE – (RECOVERED + DEATHS)

Over the coming weeks, we hope to see the active case purple bars get smaller and recovered blue bars grow larger.

Our symbol map shows confirmed and probable Covid-19 cases arranged by district health board. Southern (177), Waitemata (157), Waikato (147) and Auckland (147) remain the four District Health Boards with the largest number of active cases. All of these localities saw significant increases over the weekend. Canterbury moved into fifth rank over the weekend, jumping from 59 cases on Friday to 92 today.

The ministry reports publicly on clusters of 10 or more cases. Note that all clusters are investigated by public health officials, irrespective of size.

Today the ministry reported 12 significant clusters. Seven clusters grew in the last 24 hours. The largest increases were Marist School in Auckland (up by 6 to 72 cases) and the Christchurch rest home (up by 5 to 15 cases).

The day-by-day stacked bar chart of confirmed and probable cases continues to hold steady. I will make no further commentary at this time, but these are important numbers to watch this week.

More Reading

    The shape of the age profile breakdown also looks similar to Friday. Over the weekend, the number of confirmed cases increased for every age group. Please do not complacent, people.

    Keep going!