Rapid antigen tests will be free from community pharmacies throughout the country until the end of January 2022 to meet domestic travel requirements.
All unvaccinated Aucklanders leaving the city once the border opens on December 15 would need a negative Covid test within 72 hours of travel.
The free supervised tests will also be available for unvaccinated domestic travellers outside of Auckland who would need to travel with a company that requires it.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said that, “testing to meet domestic travel requirements will be free of charge for the core summer period and available from December 15 2021 to January 31 2022".
“Air New Zealand have made a vaccine certificate or proof of a negative test a requirement before you fly, and these requirements also begin on December 15. There will be spot checks for travellers out of Auckland airport."
Rapid antigen tests are similar to a pregnancy test which has with two blue lines displayed for a positive result. The nasal swab tests can return results in about 15 minutes.
Bloomfield said using rapid antigen tests for travellers over PCR tests "will allow our laboratories to focus on processing PCR tests".
"This will reduce the turnaround time for returning results to symptomatic people and close contacts of confirmed cases as we continue to respond to the current outbreak."
The free supervised rapid antigen testing for travel are only available for asymptomatic, unvaccinated individuals over 12 who are leaving Auckland and for required domestic travel.
During Parliament on Thursday, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins was asked by National's Chris Bishop if there had been preliminary advice around moving any areas to Green initially, in the traffic light system.
Hipkins said a Ministry of Health committee, "considered whether the South Island, the Wellington region DHBs, the Hawke's Bay and Mid-central DHB could enter the Covid-19 Protection Framework at Green".
"However, the assessment committee had specific concerns about the number of people with lower vaccination status, particularly for Māori and also active cases for several DHBs outside Auckland.
"So, it advised the Director General of Health that all regions should enter at Orange except for Auckland and Northland."
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