[Source: 1News]

There are 19,566 new COVID-19 cases in the community in New Zealand on Thursday, the Ministry of Health has announced.

There are 930 people in hospital with the virus, including 23 in an intensive care or high dependency unit.

This has decreased from 660 hospitalisations on Wednesday.

It is a slight increase on Wednesday’s ICU numbers of 21.

The ministry also announced 10 COVD-related deaths.

“This takes the total number of publicly reported Covid related deaths to 151 and the seven-day rolling average of reported deaths to eight,” the ministry said.

Of the 10 people who died, one was from Northland, five were from Auckland, one was from the Bay of Plenty, one was Hawke’s Bay and one was from Hutt Valley.

One person was aged in their 30s, one in their 50s, three in their 70s, two in their 80s and two in their 90s. Four were women and were five were men.

Demographic information for one person is not available at the moment, the health ministry said.