Rapid antigen testing, rushed in to to try to ease the strain on overworked laboratory workers, appears to be helping.
New Zealand Institute of Medical Laboratory Science president Terry Taylor, of Dunedin, said while it was early days, Rats had slightly eased the workload of the 4000 laboratory technicians he represented.
"It will take a few days before we can gauge the actual overall effect, simply because we are so backlogged and have been hit so hard over the past couple of days, but it does have an immediate effect for people on the ground, which helps.
"We lost control for a day ... This phase was meant to last for a couple of weeks for us to ease into it, but instead last week everything ended up going berserk."
Mr Taylor hoped the demand on testing would be back under control by the end of next week.
"This has been clearly the most difficult week I have ever seen for the laboratories of New Zealand."
Lab techs normally do about 200,000 medical tests on an average day, work they are still obliged to do.
However, on average for the past seven days, labs have also processed another 29,000 Covid-19 tests each day.
Earlier this week, southern lab workers processed more than 2700 PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests in a single day.
Figures released yesterday showed that the number of positive tests in the South was almost evenly split between 305 positive PCR tests and 290 positive Rats.
"Our laboratory here in Dunedin has been incredibly busy and it is an incredibly difficult time for scientists and technicians and medical staff, a really trying situation," Mr Taylor said.
"We have a lot of amazing people who have been underfunded and undervalued for so many years but they have said this is our moment in the sun and they have done the work, but it does take it out of you."
