A further 12 deaths of people with the coronavirus and 10,290 new community cases have been reported by the Ministry of Health.
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In a statement, the Ministry of Health, said 522 people were now in hospital, and 10 of those were in intensive care or a high dependency unit.
The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers today is 7951 - up 661 on yesterday.
Today's death toll covers a period back to 1 July.
One person was in their 60s, three in their 70s, five in their 80s and three were aged over 90.
Speaking in Sydney, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said with Covid-19 case numbers rising beyond the 10,000 mark today, the most important public health measures were the use of masks and vaccines.
She said moving to the red traffic light setting would mostly add gathering limits.
The case numbers from today were also particularly from an increase in cases in Waitematā, she said, with more cases in the hospital there.
The new BA.2.75 subvariant was detected in New Zealand for the first time, the ministry said, confirmed by genome sequencing on Friday of two cases in people who had travelled recently from India.
Early evidence from overseas suggested the subvariant had some characteristics that may enhance its ability to evade immunity similar to the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, and BA.2.75 may be more transmissible than BA.2, the Ministry of Health said.
Yesterday, the ministry reported another 24 deaths of people with the coronavirus, which had occurred in the period since 14 April, and 9629 new community cases. The seven-day rolling average of cases was 7246, a rise of more than 1700 compared to the same the previous week.