A COVID-19 modeller suspects there may be more cases than reported in the community because people aren't recording their results.
Sunday saw 8810 cases officially reported, the lowest number in more than a month.
However the Ministry of Health said in a statement that the number of people in hospital with COVID-19 had risen slightly after several days of falls, with 690 hospitalisations reported - up from 678 yesterday - and 26 people in intensive care.
Dion O'Neale said despite the number of cases trending downward, it was likely there could be more people with COVID-19 in the community, because rapid antigen test (RAT) results needed to be self-reported.
He said some people may no longer feel the disease is as much of a "big deal" as they'd previously thought.
"They think the cases are dropping and it doesn't matter quite so much, or it's not going to change anything for them."
He said those who didn't feel they needed government support while they were isolating may also not be reporting their positive test results.
O'Neale said it was likely however that the true infection rate was generally declining.
While there tends to be lower testing and reporting over weekends, today's seven-day rolling average of cases was 13,543, down from 16,325 a week ago.
RNZ
