The number of Covid-19 cases being reported each day has risen back above 2,000, the Ministry of Health has confirmed. 

There were about 2,029 cases a day in the week ending April 16, with 14,242 infections reported overall. That’s about 2,000 more than were reported across the week prior.

There were also 363 people in hospital with Covid-19 and nine in the intensive care unit.

About three deaths a day were linked to Covid-19, with the overall death toll bumped up by 32 over the past week. Of those, 21 can be definitively attributed to the virus.

The surge in cases came as experts warn of a fourth wave of Covid-19 cases. Epidemiologist Michael Baker said case numbers have been steadily increasing and encouraged people to wear masks on public transport and in other poorly ventilated areas.

Mandatory self-isolation for positive Covid cases will remain the rules until at least June.

Food prices have continued to surge with new figures showing costs are 12.1% higher in March than in the same time last year.

Grocery food was the largest contributor to this price jump, said Stats NZ, particularly caused by barn and cage-raised eggs and six-packs of yoghurt.

Fruit and vegetables were up by 22%, with general groceries up 14%, restaurant meals and ready-to-eat food up 8.7%, non-alcoholic drinks up 7.8% and meat and fish up 7.8%.

Monthly food prices rose 0.8 percent between February and March, said Stats NZ.

Some primary and intermediate class sizes will be one student smaller by the start of 2025, the government has announced.

Education minister Jan Tinetti has today launched a new education policy that would reduce the classroom ratio of 1:29 – meaning one teacher to 29 pupils – down to 1:28 for years four to eight.

Over the longer term, a new ministerial advisory group will be established to look at classroom sizes more broadly. It’ll be fronted by experts from the education sector.

“I’m not happy with the downward trends we are seeing in maths, reading and writing. More teachers, targeted to where they are most needed is a practical way we can improve results for our kids,” Tinetti said.

“Reducing the number of students in each class will take some pressure off our hard working teachers and allow them to spend more one-on-one time with each student.”

Tinetti said there will be 320 extra full time primary and intermediate teachers in classrooms by the time this policy comes into effect, and half of them will already be in place by next year.

The National Party launched its election year education policy a weeks back, focusing on mandatory English, maths and science alongside additional assessments for younger students.

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown admits he took his eye off the ball but the council should bear the brunt of the blame for comms failures during the January floods. “I think the council’s response was very poor. I was guilty, most of all, of assuming that they knew what they were doing,” Brown told Q&A’s Jack Tame, in his first extended TV interview since taking office last year. “We all could have done better. I apologised for dropping the ball. I didn’t realise a ball hadn’t been thrown to me.”

He also said he was open to revising upwards his proposed rates increase of 4.66% – below the rate of inflation – to help cover the council’s $295 million shortfall. However he said he didn’t think higher rates were fair on homeowners being buffeted by both rising mortgage rates and dropping house prices.

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Is it starting to feel like a lot of your friends/family/colleagues are getting sick once again? I spent my birthday in semi-isolation last weekend after someone in my household and a bunch of my close friends tested positive for Covid-19. And according to one top epidemiologist, my incredibly small sample size is representative of something bigger.

Michael Baker told RNZ that as New Zealand heads into the colder months, we’re also now riding our fourth wave of Covid-19 infections.

“We’ve seen that numbers reached a low point in February and have been tracking up since then,” he said.

The latest weekly figures will be out at 1pm today but last week the Ministry of Health reported daily case numbers were averaging 1,729 – an increase on the week before. There were 12,129 cases reported overall in the week ending April 9.

“It’s really important that everyone who has a position in authority thinks about the health of their workforce and their school population and the social venues that they operate in,” said Baker.

The government confirmed last week that mandatory self-isolation would remain a requirement for positive cases until at least June, meaning that the last line of defence against the virus would stay in place into winter. Prime minister Chris Hipkins said he expected that by the time Spring arrived, we would be starting to treat Covid-19 a bit like other seasonal illnesses.

Baker said while masks aren’t a requirement any longer, people should be protecting themselves, for example, on public transport. “If you are on a bus commuting … or train, you are going to be in that indoor environment for many hours every week and the ventilation is poor, so that would be a situation where I think masks should still be worn by everyone.”