Source: Covid-19 New Zealand Government Announcements
Update from the Ministry of Health
The increasing number of cases and hospitalisations is a reminder of the importance getting vaccinated and boosted.
Being boosted greatly reduces the chances you will get severely ill and require hospital care if you get COVID-19. Boosters offer a high level of protection against Omicron, so if it has been three months or more since your second dose of the vaccine, please get your booster.
Yesterday, there were 15,195 booster doses administered.
If you’re out and about, remember to wear a mask. Masks reduce the risk of a person both catching and spreading the virus.
The Ministry is also seeing reports of people who are symptomatic that are testing negative for COVID-19 in their initial test but later returning a positve test. Our advice is that even if you receive a negative test, you should stay at home until well and retest if symptoms persist or worsen.
Rapid antigen test (RAT) update
More than 130,000 orders were placed through RAT requester site for free RATs yesterday, covering more than half a million people, or about 2 million tests.
The Ministry wants to reassure people that we have enough RATs to help New Zealand through a widespread Omicron outbreak in the coming months. Over the past week, 8.8m million RATs have been distributed. Over the weekend, another 8m RATs are expected to arrive in the country with another 99 million confirmed for delivery this month.
There are 177 collection sites, 99 testing centres, and 30 providers supporting our priority population groups nationwide.
So, while we are anticipating continued high demand, our request is to, please, be patient and kind to each other and staff. They are working as hard as they can.
If you are symptomatic or a household contact, you can order RATs through the newly launched RAT requester site. You, or someone of your behalf, can collect your RAT order from a collection site listed on Healthpoint. Please only go to those sites that are listed as collection sites.
The priority for COVID-19 response for free RATs remains those who are symptomatic or a household contact. Please do not order or request RATs from testing centre or collections sites unless you are unwell or a household contact. International travel pre-departure testing is not covered under the public health response. If you are well, you can still purchase RATs from one of a growing number of retailers which stock them.
Read the latest update from the Ministry of Health (external link)
