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Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield (Illustration: Simon Chesterman)
Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield (Illustration: Simon Chesterman)

SocietyApril 18, 2020

Covid-19: New Zealand cases mapped and charted, April 18

Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield (Illustration: Simon Chesterman)
Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield (Illustration: Simon Chesterman)

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

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

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 – 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 update your app to the latest version.

This afternoon’s Ministry of Health figures report that the total number of confirmed and probable Covid-19 cases stands at 1,422 (1,094 confirmed and 328 probable). A total of 867 people have recovered, an increase of 51 since yesterday. There were eight new confirmed cases reported in the last 24 hours and five new probable cases. No deaths were reported.

The number of significant clusters with 10 or more cases remains at 16. There are 20 people in hospital which is six more than yesterday. There are three people in intensive care units, one each in Middlemore, Dunedin and North Shore hospitals. The Dunedin and North Shore patients remain in critical condition.

Yesterday, 4,677 tests were processed. This is the highest number of tests processed in a single day. The ministry reported averaging 2,905 Covid-19 lab tests per day during the week ending April 17. A total of 79,078 lab tests have been conducted since January 22. There are 94,820 test supplies in stock –  an increase of 27,118 from 67,702 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.

For the fourth day, Ministry of Health statistics show more recovered than active cases. The number of active cases dropped again from 582 to 544 this morning. The overall downward trend of active case counts that started around April 8 continues.

The symbol map shows confirmed and probable Covid-19 cases arranged by district health board. In keeping with the relatively small number of new cases, there is minimal change in regional counts. Southern (up two to 216), Waitematā (no change at 206), Auckland (up one to 185) and Waikato (no change at 183) remain the four district health boards with the largest number of active cases.

There are 16 significant clusters under investigation by the Ministry of Health, the same as yesterday. There was minimal change in cluster sizes overnight.

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.

The same broad trend that we see in the other charts is evident here. There is a downward trend in the number of cases. Even with a few potential cases getting upgraded to probable or confirmed in recent days, these numbers look promising.

Keep going!