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

SocietyMay 6, 2020

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

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

The latest in our series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall. David Garcia worked with Chris to create today’s charts.

These posts collate the most recent statistics and present 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 so use your mouse or thumb to hover over each graph for more detail.

After a couple of days with no new cases of Covid-19, the Ministry of Health announced two new cases today. One case is confirmed case and the other is a probable.

This afternoon’s Ministry of Health figures report that the total number of confirmed and probable Covid-19 cases is up two to 1,489 (1,138 confirmed and 350 probable). A total of 1,302 people have recovered, which is an increase of 26 since yesterday.

Sadly, there was another death related to Covid-19 overnight. This person was part of the Rosewood retirement home cluster in Christchurch. This brings the total number of people who have died from conditions related to Covid-19 to 21.

The number of significant clusters with 10 or more cases remains at 16. In 13 of these clusters transmission is treated as still potentially ongoing, while three clusters have been closed. There are four people in hospital, which is a decrease of four since yesterday. There are no known Covid-19 cases in intensive care units.

Yesterday, 4,772 tests were processed. The ministry reported averaging 4,571 Covid-19 lab tests per day during the week ending May 3. A total of 160,700 lab tests have been conducted since January 22. There are 60,688 test supplies in stock, up from 58,014 yesterday.

This chart compares active and recovered cases. Active cases are confirmed or probable cases of Covid-19 where the person has neither recovered nor died. Recovered cases are people who were once an active case, but are at least 10 days since onset and have not exhibited any symptoms for 48 hours.

From today we are including the number of deaths related to Covid-19 to this chart. A heartfelt thank you to the various readers who have written in with suggestions about how to handle this sensitive figure appropriately.

The overall downward trend of active case counts that started around April 8 continues. Note how the blue curve is levelling off, while the purple bars continue to decline. This means there are very few new cases being reported while existing cases steadily recover.

This table shows the number of active cases, recovered people and deaths in each area. Whanganui, Wairarapa, Tairāwhiti and West Coast continue to have no active cases. Today they are joined by Bay of Plenty, Lakes and Taranaki, The largest number of active cases are in Waitamatā (30), Canterbury (23), Auckland (23) and Waikato (19).

You can sort the table’s rows by clicking on the column titles.

The symbol map shows confirmed and probable Covid-19 cases arranged by district health board. In keeping with the lack of new cases, there is no change in regional counts. Waitematā (up one to 229), Southern (no change at 216), Waikato (no change at 186) and Auckland (up one to 178) are the four district health boards with the largest number of active cases.

Of New Zealand’s 16 significant clusters, 13 remain under investigation for ongoing transmission by the Ministry of Health.

This chart shows the number of active, recovered and deaths associated with each cluster. The ministry has not released formal counts associating deceased persons with clusters. Instead, we compiled these numbers from ministry media releases about each case.

For the first time, the number of recovered cases outweighs the number of active cases in all significant clusters.

Three significant clusters have been closed. Closing a cluster signifies that the ministry is confident there is no longer transmission of the virus within, or associated with the cluster. A cluster can be closed after 28 consecutive days pass since the most recent onset date of a reported case. This period corresponds to two incubation periods for the virus.

This chart shows cases by the date they were first entered into EpiSurv, ESR’s public health surveillance system. Note that the number of cases reported on a particular date may not match the number of cases reported in the last 24 hours. This is because the number of confirmed and probable cases reported in the last 24 hours includes cases that were entered on an earlier date as “under investigation” or “suspected” whose status has now been changed to confirmed or probable.

More Reading

    The gap in cases between May 1 and May 6 signifies that no new cases were entered into the EpiSurv database during these dates.

    Keep going!