An expert is warning Covid-19 case numbers could rise during winter with more associated deaths, as officials confirm two new cases of the BA.5 Omicron variant have been detected in New Zealand.

A further two Covid-related deaths were reported by health authorities yesterday along with 6407 community infections and 368 hospitalisations including 18 cases who were in ICU.

Both of the people who died were male and in their 80s. One person was from Wairarapa and the other from Whanganui.

“This is a very sad time for whānau and friends and our thoughts and condolences are with them at this time,” the Ministry of Health said.

The seven-day rolling average for Covid-19 case numbers yesterday was 7479, while last Monday it was 7553.

University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker said new Covid-19 sub-variants were among several factors that could push Covid-19 case numbers over winter.

Baker told RNZ he expected case numbers to rise over the coming months, which would result in increased hospitalisations and deaths.

Yesterday, a further two people who had travelled from overseas to New Zealand were confirmed as having the BA.5 variant.

There are now three confirmed cases, all of whom travelled here from South Africa.

Baker said the variant had “taken over the world”.

“[In New Zealand] we saw the original BA.1 has now been replaced by BA.2, and we would expect to see more dominant – or we would say ‘fitter’ variants gradually take over from the ones before – this is natural selection taking place before our very eyes,” Baker told RNZ.

“If a variant becomes more common … we can say yes, it’s got a competitive advantage. The other effect is whether it’s more severe – but that takes a very long time to find out and there are so many factors that affect that.”

More transmissible variants becoming dominant and more infections were expected to translate into more hospitalisations and deaths, Baker told RNZ.

“With Omicron, our high vaccine coverage in New Zealand is giving us a lot of protection from this variant, because in terms of its actual virulence it’s very similar to the original virus that spread in 2020.

“So this is not inherently a benign virus. It’s just that because we’ve got high vaccine coverage in New Zealand, although we’ve got some gaps, that’s what’s protecting us from the worst of it.”

As of yesterday, 95.2 per cent of eligible New Zealanders had been double dosed with vaccine and 70.8 per cent had been boosted.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is isolating instead of using the critical worker scheme after her partner Clarke Gayford tested positive.

Political editor Claire Trevett in a piece yesterday said Ardern was not using the exemption scheme for critical workers because of childcare responsibilities and because she was not technically considered a critical worker.

The critical worker exemption scheme allowed critical workers who were household contacts to go to work provided they tested negative each day. Businesses and workplaces needed to register as “critical services” for their workers to qualify for the scheme.

The locations of yesterday’s community cases were Northland (146), Auckland (2066), Waikato (441), Bay of Plenty (195), Lakes (106), Hawke’s Bay (186), MidCentral (225), Whanganui (54), Taranaki (143), Tairāwhiti (36), Wairarapa (63), Capital and Coast (496), Hutt Valley (177), Nelson Marlborough (224), Canterbury (1033), South Canterbury (96), Southern (654) and the West Coast (62).

The locations of four cases was unknown.

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