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Cases of Covid-19 are up on last week, as a new, highly transmissible subvariant XEC arrives in in New Zealand.
There have been 886 new cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand over the week to Sunday, and six further deaths attributed to the virus.
There were 89 people in hospital with the virus.
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The latest Health NZ figures come as a new, highly transmissible sub-variant arrives in New Zealand.
Last week, the first cases of XEC were reported in the country. This strain is a mix of two previous Omicron subvariants. A recombinant variant is created when a person is infected with two strains of a virus that then reproduce, resulting in a different strain.
It has been reported in about 30 other countries, including Australia.
ESR has detected a number of cases of the new strain in clinical samples.
Professor Paul Griffin from the University of Queensland told Checkpoint XEC seemed to be more infectious than other subvariants.
"In many parts of the world it's predicted it'll be dominant, perhaps even by the middle of this month."
Griffin added people needed to maintain a certain level of readiness and mitigating strategies.
"At the moment, I think one of our biggest challenges is actually complacency.
"The fact that we've got a new subvariant that's looking more infectious than taking over in many parts of the world, it should be a reminder that we need to keep up some of those basic strategies like vaccination, antivirals and simple measures to reduce getting infected and onward transmission."
Last week, Te Whatu Ora reported 1174 new cases and five further deaths.
