The government has backtracked on plans to urgently test every single person who had come into the Ports of Auckland for Covid-19.
Last week the Ministry of Health issued a mandatory testing order for all workers at the Auckland and Tauranga ports as part of its border blitz.
It had hoped to get all of those workers tested by midnight last night, but only managed to get about a fraction swabbed - 3485 workers as at 1pm today.
The previous order had covered anyone who had come into contact with the port since 21 July - that was more than 5000 people from 800 organisations at the Ports of Auckland alone.
The current order has been narrowed to focus on higher risk workers, such as those dealing directly with ships and ship workers, and anyone with symptoms to be tested.
The Road Transport Forum had opposed the testing of truck drivers saying they came into contact with hardly anyone at the borders, and Ports of Auckland spokesman Matt Ball agreed that it made sense to reign in the testing.
"The scale of the previous order was huge and probably not necessary, given the low and pretty much zero risk for people like truck drivers."
He said the ministry had now come to grips with how the supply chain at the ports worked and how many people actually interacted with the ports.
Ball said the ports had been asking for testing since April and the government had been slow to respond.
Ongoing testing will now continue at the Ports of Auckland and the Tauranga Port, and Health Minister Chris Hipkins said it was also being rolled out at other ports around the country.
The government still doesn't know what the source of the latest Covid cluster in Auckland is.
The first case is believed to be a worker at the Americold facility who displayed symptoms on 31 July.
Testing at the borders will continue as health authorities work to figure out any gaps.
Hipkins said he would be issuing two public health orders by the end of the week - one formalising the testing regime for air crew and the other formalising routine testing moving forward.
