The Ministry of Health says a significant increase in New Zealand's ability to carry out contact tracing is proving vital at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19, with hundreds of staff mobilised to carry out the work and 5 thousand close contacts tracked so far.
The Government's dedicated contact tracing service set up for COVID-19 is also now seeing more than 700 cases being traced in a single day.
In March, the Government announced a dedicated $500 million fund to help protect New Zealanders and their health around COVID-19, and that included a near doubling in resources for public health units specifically to increase capacity for contact tracing.