Rapid antigen testing is being stepped up in the Bay of Plenty after the move to phase 3 of the Government's Omicron response plan at 11.59pm.
A Tauranga business leader says the move "should have happened sooner" and has called for rapid tests to be widely available for retail sale.
The move to phase 3 followed a jump in new national cases yesterday to more than 6000.
In Phase 3, people with symptoms and household contacts of confirmed cases have to be tested and isolate. Household contacts need to be tested on Day 3 and Day 10. With symptoms, they are recommended to be tested sooner.
There were 191 new cases in the Bay of Plenty District Health Board area yesterday, bringing the total active cases to 786, with six in hospital, according to Toi Te Ora Public Health. Most were detected through PCR tests, but 75 were via rapid antigen tests (RATs).
It bought Tauranga's total active cases to 530, with 201 in the Western Bay district and the rest in the Eastern Bay.
University of Waikato professor of public health Ross Lawrenson said Covid-19 cases had "really taken off" nationally, including in the Bay of Plenty.
"At this early stage we're doing a lot of testing - a high proportion of people are coming forward and being tested.
"If we go from 3000 cases [on Tuesday] ... to 10,000 next week nationally, then that means there's probably a whole lot of other people that have got Omicron but haven't been tested.
"I think our concern is the uncertainty we're going to have around the case numbers because it's very dependent on how many people are being tested and how we link up the RAT tests to our daily figures on the numbers of cases.
"Our modelling assumes that most cases are identified and reported."
He was also concerned about hospitalisations.
"Increasingly we're talking about not just the number of infections but the number of symptomatic cases because it's the symptomatic cases that are going to be tested and it's a proportion of those that then end up in hospital that are key for us."
Tauranga Chamber of Commerce chief executive Matt Cowley said the move to phase 3 "should have happened sooner".
"People have wanted to do their own surveillance testing with RATs since the Omicron outbreak."
"Allowing people to contract trace and have better access to surveillance testing is good given the state of the spread."
He advised business owners to "communicate regularly with staff and customers to ensure everyone knows what happens when staff need to isolate and how operations will be affected."
He backed the Auckland Business Chamber's call for RATs to be widely available for retail purchase.
Bay of Plenty DHB Covid-19 community care and partnership lead Helen De Vere said the RATs rollout in the Bay was expected to be "gradual".
She said stock levels changed "frequently" as more rapid tests were being brought into the country.
"The Bay of Plenty community can be assured there is sufficient stock to meet its Covid-19 testing needs."
She said the increased use of RATs would relieve pressure on PCR testing and reserve it for certain circumstances, such as at the request of a health practitioner.
"If you come to a Covid-19 community testing centre in the Bay of Plenty because you are unwell with cold or flu symptoms, or have been instructed to get tested by health officials, you may be given a rapid Covid-19 test."
"However, if a health practitioner requests you have a nasal swab, you may still have a Covid-19 nasal swab."
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said RATs should be available to buy at retail outlets from next month.
"We've got millions more of them arriving in the coming days," he said.
He also said phase 3 would focus more on self-notification. The onus will be on positive cases alerting their household contacts.
Stewart Gebbie, owner of The Barrel Room, said it was a matter of when his business would have to shut temporarily rather than if.
"If one of our staff members gets sick, we'll have to close, and that's almost inevitable that they will.
"I'm expecting us to have to close from time to time because we won't have the staff. We're prepared."
"We'll lose money, but we won't lose the business."
He said the move to phase 3 might impact customer behaviour.
"Really, I think people are a little bit scared to go out. Not that many people, but I think that accounts for the dropoff."
He said it was "everyday people" who felt nervous about going out, not just "tinfoil hats" on the fringe.
Shane Cunliffe, principal of Te Manawa ō Pāpāmoa School - one of several schools in the Bay dealing with positive cases in its community - said he was waiting to hear from the Ministry of Education whether his students who were isolating could return to school or not.
"That's our big question."
"We're still relatively small and intimate at the moment, so that is an advantage in terms of just smaller numbers."
He said he didn't foresee any particular difficulties in phase 3 "as long as there's clear communication" regarding the rules.
His school aimed to be "as transparent and as early with communication as possible ... it would be nice to be able to get those comms out [to parents] sooner rather than later."
• Only household contacts of confirmed cases need to isolate. Household close contacts will need to isolate until the positive person completes 10 days of isolation. People who are symptomatic household contacts of a confirmed case will become a probable case and not need to test.
• Positive cases will be required to notify close contacts themselves. Contacts will only be traced and required to isolate if they are a high-risk contact.
• Symptomatic people and/or critical workers can get a rapid antigen test from a doctor, pharmacy, community testing centre or workplace. Healthcare and critical workers who are asymptomatic close contacts can use "test to return" rapid antigen tests
Baypark community testing station: Open daily from 10am to 3pm
Mount Maunganui Sports Centre pop-up testing: Open today from 9am to 3pm
Te Manu Toroa Tauranga Moana City Clinic: Open Monday to Friday from 8am to 4.30pm (by appointment only).
There are 72 Covid testing sites in the Bay of Plenty region all of which can be found on the Healthpoint website
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