Yeah, Nah: Do you still test for Covid?

Tuesday, 12 March 2024

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in Aotearoa in early 2022, as the Omicron outbreak took hold and RAT tests became widely available, daily reported cases began surpassing 20,000.

Two years later, daily cases average around 800, despite the introduction of a new variant over the summer and a clear disconnect between reported cases and infection levels detected via wastewater surveillance.

Health NZ has now updated its testing advice, saying household contacts of a person who has tested positive for the virus, but who don’t have symptoms themselves, will no longer need to test for five days with a RAT.

From last week, only household contacts who develop one or more Covid-19 symptoms are recommended to stay at home and test.

The testing changes reflect “the reality of the situation that we’re in at the moment,” Covid-19 modeller Michael Plank said.

“Although Covid is still in the community, the waves that we’ve been having have become much smaller, and the population has higher levels of immunity now, so fewer people are getting infected.”

Do you still test for Covid if you get sick, or if your household contacts test positive? Let us know in the poll above.