The country is ending the week with more record numbers from the Covid outbreak.
New community cases announced today were almost double yesterday's figure at just over a whopping 12,000 and the Health Ministry also announced five deaths - the most reported in a single day since the pandemic began.
The ministry says health workers gave more than 27,000 vaccinations yesterday, the vast majority booster shots.
Amid all this, Covid Response Minister and Education Minister Chris Hipkins visited one of the first schools in the Wellington region to deal directly with the virus.
Here's our education correspondent, John Gerritsen.
