1 death

The Ministry of Health said the case is a 21-year old woman who had severe underlying condition and was fully vaccinated.

There were 32 new confirmed cases reported in the last 24 hours.

Seven of the cases are in in SHEFA Province (4 on Efate and 3 on Lelepa), two in SANMA Province (Santo) and 23 cases in PENAMA Province (Pentecost).

There are currently 471 active community cases.

There were 7622 cases confirmed since 1 January 2022 and 7137 recovered.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health said there were 77 people in hospital, including eight people in ICU.

The person who died was in their 80s and had been in Auckland City Hospital since 17 November.

"Our thoughts are with their whānau and friends at this very sad time," the Ministry said in its statement.

There are 127 new cases in Auckland, with the rest in Waikato (13), Bay of Plenty (4) and Canterbury (1).

In a statement the Ministry of Health (MOH) said Counties Manukau Health reported the death of a man in his 40s at Middlemore Hospital.

“No further information will be released until conversations with the man’s family have concluded. Our thoughts are with the man’s family and friends at this deeply sad time.”

Of the new cases, 175 were in Auckland, 20 in Waikato, five in Bay of Plenty, one in Taupō and four in Northland.

Thirty-three of the cases have been out in the community while infectious.

NSW Health confirmed a woman in her 90s from south west Sydney died yesterday at Liverpool Hospital.

It is the first COVID death in NSW since December 2020.

She was a close contact of a locally acquired case and was tested for COVID-19 on Friday, returning a positive result early yesterday morning.

Health Secretary James Fong says the 55-year-old woman from Nabua was attended to by a ministry response team at a medical facility.

The woman was transferred to the Colonial War Memorial Hospital after she reported having severe symptoms of COVID-19.

"Her condition worsened in hospital and she died two days after admission. She was not vaccinated," Dr Fong said.

He said there had been two more deaths of COVID positive patients.

The NDMO's Peter Korisa said information remained sketchy and incomplete and he said his organisation had been trying hard to make contact with communities and area councils in the provinces.

He said the weather was still bad in the affected parts of Vanuatu but he hoped it would clear up enough tomorrow to begin an aerial surveillance operation that could take up to a week.

He said he met with several humanitarian agencies yesterday some of whom have relief supplies stored in Port Vila which could be used to respond to the disaster.