Coronavirus: New Zealand only country with more than 1000 COVID-19 cases and only one death

New Zealand is the only country with more than 1000 COVID-19 cases and only one death, according to an online coronavirus tracker.

Microsoft Bing's COVID-19 tracker displays the global total of active, recovered and fatal cases, and it also provides a breakdown of data by country.

New Zealand's total number of cases currently sits at 1160, 877 of which are active and 282  have recovered. One person has died, meaning the country's death rate is 0.09 percent.

Out of all countries that have recorded one death, New Zealand is the only one that has more than 1000 cases. There are 26 other countries that have also recorded one death so far.

Microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles told Newshub it's likely New Zealand has a lower mortality rate because of the number of tests that are being done.

"One of the things to note about the mortality rate is that it is dependent on the number of confirmed cases. Some countries either aren't able to test all suspected cases, or are choosing not to test all suspected cases, and that makes their rate look higher than it is," she says.

"Comparatively, we are doing a high number of tests for the size of our population so are perhaps catching more cases."

But Dr Wiles also says the low mortality rate could be due to the high number of cases with people who are young and healthy, even though this may not guarantee someone will have a mild experience of COVID-19.

People aged 20 to 29 make up the largest group of people in New Zealand with the virus. There are 300 people currently in this age bracket, according to the Ministry of Health. The age group with the second-highest number of cases is those aged 50 to 59, where 206 people have been infected so far.