The Covid-19 contact tracing system is coming under increased pressure and scrutiny.
The Health Ministry says tracing is vital but admits its new national tracing centre is locked into using only its own phone system at the moment.
The ministry says as of 3pm yesterday, 840 close contacts have been identified; 69 in the past 24 hours.
It says as of last night it had about 100 nurses in its contact tracing national team, though numbers changed frequently as case numbers kept rising.
This comes as an Auckland high school says 800 girls are considered the close contacts of the four virus cases it has.
Phil Pennington reports.
