Stories by Rowan Quinn

Ministry of Health figures show it's still taking too long for the contacts of people with Covid-19 to get into isolation to minimise the risk of spreading the virus.

Pacific health leaders say bringing police in to help with contact tracing is a bad look and may intimidate the community - and say there are better ways to bolster expertise.

Two separate trials of the CovidCard will still go ahead, despite one of its original backers pulling out, government ministers Kris Faafoi and Megan Woods say.

The government was still falling short on contact tracing targets a week ago - 10 days into the current Covid outbreak.

As the government races to test 70,000 people in seven days, GPs are warning it must get community testing back on track long-term.

Masks should become compulsory in bars and restaurants at level 2, leading public health professor Nick Wilson says.

Weekly testing of all border workers would greatly reduce the chance of another Covid outbreak, new scientific modelling shows. Audio

Exhausted lab workers working long hours testing for Covid-19 are warning safety could be compromised if the huge demand continues.

Emergency physician Mya Cubitt is one of hundreds of New Zealanders working in hospitals in Victoria as the state deals with hundreds of cases a day - and deaths, which have also been on the rise.

A woman tested at an Auckland pop-up clinic had to queue in a tent with other symptomatic people - with little social distancing and hardly anyone wearing a mask.

Covid-19 could have been spreading in Auckland for weeks, with dozens of people already infected, two experts claim. Audio

The roll-out of a cervical cancer test women can do themselves has been delayed again, with doctors saying women will die unnecessarily as a result. Audio

Auckland's public health service tried to get out of a huge increase in Covid-19 contact tracing requirements, saying they seemed unnecessary.

A vaccination campaign to plug a gap that leaves the country vulnerable to a deadly measles outbreak will begin this year, the government says.

Pasifika doctors say a measles vaccination catch-up campaign is years overdue - and would have prevented last year's epidemic if it had been done on time.

Hundreds of doctors surveyed by the College of GPs say they've had patients refuse to be tested for Covid-19, sometimes because they don't think it's necessary.

One person has died and two people have been hospitalised with listeria in Tauranga, prompting a warning to pregnant women and others at risk.

It appears fewer babies were born prematurely during the lockdown, putting New Zealand in line with a trend seen in other countries.

Auckland's Covid contact tracing capacity is about half what it needs to be, with nine days until the deadline to have it up to scratch.

Just eight Covid-19 tests of people in the community were processed on Sunday, prompting the government to look at whether to loosen testing criteria. Audio

Some people are being refused testing at Auckland Covid community testing centres, even if Healthline has told them to get one.

Some doctors are charging for Covid-19 tests despite health officials saying they should be free, and there's also confusion about who should be swabbed.

Covid-19 testing for every person with a cough or cold symptom has been dropped, in a move expected to put an end to the huge demand for tests in some areas. Audio

A Whangārei GP says the city ran out of Covid-19 swabs yesterday as a result of increasing demand. Audio

Plans to close Wellington's Covid-19 community testing centres this week have been ditched amid the rising number of overseas cases.