The Ministry of Health is reporting another drop in the number of Covid-19 cases this week.

Over the past week there have been 19,215 new Covid-19 cases and more than 2000 less than the week before.

Of that total, more than a third - 7795 - were reinfections.

The seven-day rolling average of community cases was 2738, which was down compared to last Monday's average of 2996.

There have also been another 57 deaths of people with Covid-19 and a total of 333 people are in hospital with the virus, including eight in ICU.

Of the deaths being reported today, three were from Northland, 19 were from the Auckland region, seven were from Waikato, six were from Bay of Plenty, two were from Lakes, three were from Hawke's Bay, one was from Taranaki, three were from MidCentral, one was from Whanganui, three were from Wellington region, one was from Nelson Marlborough, seven were from Canterbury and one was from Southern.

One was less than 10 years old, one was aged between 10 and 19 years, two were in their 30s, three were in their 40s, seven were in their 50s, six were in their 60s, 14 were in their 70s, 16 were in their 80s and seven were aged over 90. Of these people, 27 were women and 30 were men, the ministry said.

Last week on Monday, the ministry reported 2424 new cases of Covid-19 in the community.

It also announced the XBB.1.5 variant, known as Kraken, had been detected in the country.

It descends from the Omicron XBB subvariant, which is itself a cross between two earlier strains: BA.2.75 and BA.2.10.1.

-RNZ.