New Zealand's COVID-19 outbreak continues to grow rapidly, with a record 2846 new community cases reported by the Ministry of Health on Tuesday.
The new figures show a jump of 481 cases on Monday's 2365 figure, and an increase on the previous record of 2522 cases recorded a day prior.
Hospitalisation figures were also on the rise on Tuesday, with the number of those with COVID-19 requiring hospital-level care jumping to 143, an increase of 27 on the 116 in hospital on Monday.
There remains one person in ICU, and no one has died in the last 24 hours.
The booster rollout continued on Monday with another 27,770 people getting their third dose of the vaccine. Nearly 2.2 million people have now had their booster nationwide - 67.1 percent of those eligible.
In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, the Ministry of Health stressed the importance of the right people being tested for the right reasons.
"Over the last week, a significant number of concerned people who don't need a test are going to get a test – those are people who don't have any COVID-19 symptoms and are not a contact of a case," it read.
"People should only get tested if they have cold or flu symptoms, have been identified as a close contact of a case, or have been asked to get tested by a health official.
"As demand for testing has grown, some COVID-19 test results for Auckland and Waikato are currently taking longer to process at laboratories. The use of rapid antigen testing, alongside PCR testing, will improve this process at a time of exceptional demand in phase 2, provided the Community Testing Centre queues are freely available for those who really need a test."
The ministry says it is anticipating "continued high demand" at testing sites, and is urging Kiwis to be patient.
"Staff across the testing network are working tirelessly, to process tests and return results in a timely way. We would like to thank them for their recent mahi."
