Thousands of Auckland’s essential workers have undergone asymptomatic Covid-19 tests in the past few days in a bid to ensure there are no unaccounted cases in the city.
A spokesperson for the Northern Region Health Coordination Centre said 12,000 people had undergone surveillance testing since Thursday.
The tests come ahead of Cabinet’s meeting on Monday where they will decide if Auckland can move down an alert level.
The 12,000 are made up of workers emergency services, supermarket, petrol station and dairy operators, as well as supply chain, post and logistics, and transport.
“We’d like to thank the 12,000 essential workers who have taken up the invite of a one-off asymptomatic Covid-19 test in the past few days.,” the spokesperson said.
Daily case numbers have more than doubled to 23 while unlinked cases have risen to 36, up seven from Friday.
“This focused surveillance testing will help provide assurance that we are getting on top of the Covid-19 outbreak in our community.
“We’ll be continuing to work with employers in the coming days to invite more essential workers to take a one-off asymptomatic Covid-19 test via workplace pop-up testing.”
The workers were provided with vouchers to get a Covid swab.
“We have been working with organisations to provide vouchers for their staff so that they can take up the invite and be tested at an Auckland testing site convenient for them,” the spokesperson said.
“People who don’t have symptoms and have a test for surveillance purposes don’t need to isolate while they wait for the result.”
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