Wellington, Feb 25 (IANS): New Zealand recorded 12,011 new community cases of Covid-19 on Friday, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

Nearly 8,000 cases of the infections were reported in the largest city, Auckland. In addition, 19 new cases were detected at the New Zealand border, Xinhua news agency reported.

Currently 237 Covid patients are being treated in New Zealand hospitals, with three of them in the intensive care unit.

The ministry also reported the deaths of five patients with Covid.

New Zealand has reported 54,480 confirmed cases of Covid since the beginning of the pandemic, including 39,413 active community cases which have been identified in the past 21 days and not yet classified as recovered, the ministry said.

The country moved to the next phase of the government's Omicron response from Friday, said Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins.

The changes will ease some of the pressure on the country's testing and contact tracing services over the next three to six weeks, while helping to ensure critical services and supply chains remain operational and the economy keeps moving, he said.

Close contacts will no longer be required to self-isolate. Only confirmed cases and household contacts of a confirmed case will be required to self-isolate for 10 days, Hipkins said.

Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) will become the primary form of testing, as New Zealanders can now access an RAT from thousands of locations around the country.

The country is at the highest Red settings under its COVID-19 Protection Framework. At Red settings, face masks become mandatory in many indoor environments and gatherings are limited to 100 people.