Source: Covid-19 New Zealand Government Announcements
Update from the Ministry of Health
The booster rollout continues with more than 27,770 booster doses administered across the motu yesterday.
With Omicron spreading rapidly in New Zealand, it is important everyone who is eligible gets a booster dose, which greatly reduces your chances of getting severely ill and requiring hospital care if you test positive for COVID-19.
This will reduce COVID-19 hospitalisations and ensure there is capacity in our health system for anyone who needs care.
If it has been three months since your last dose, please book your booster today.
Testing reminder
The Ministry of Health continues to stress the importance of the right people being tested for the right reasons.
Over the last week, a significant number of concerned people who don’t need a test are going to get a test – those are people who don’t have any COVID-19 symptoms and are not a contact of a case.
People should only get tested if they have cold or flu symptoms, have been identified as a close contact of a case, or have been asked to get tested by a health official.
As demand for testing has grown, some COVID-19 test results for Auckland and Waikato are currently taking longer to process at laboratories. The use of rapid antigen testing, alongside PCR testing, will improve this process at a time of exceptional demand in Phase 2, provided the Community Testing Centre queues are freely available for those who really need a test.
We are anticipating continued high demand at our COVID-19 testing sites, so our request is to, please, be patient. Staff across the testing network are working tirelessly, to process tests and return results in a timely way. We would like to thank them for their recent mahi.
Update on today’s COVID-19 cases | health.govt.nz (external link)
