Family doctors nationwide are expected to be further slammed as the number of people infected with Omicron is expected to soar over the next six to 12 weeks. 

Omicron case numbers have been hovering near the 1000 daily mark in the past few days, but experts are warning they will now take off with numbers expected to double every three days. 

Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners president Dr Samantha Murton said GPs were going to have to provide more care to patients and would have to possibly work over the weekends as the outbreak takes hold. 

Because the treatment provided to Omicron patients couldn't be done in person, it made it impossible for people to go and sit in the waiting room of an after-hours clinic as they would with other illnesses so they would instead be turning to their GPs. 

While the majority of people would be able to manage the infection home and only have mild symptoms, Murton said there would be some people who need GP care. 

While some practices would be able to manage the extra workload, there would be some who couldn't largely due to a lack of support or already being swamped and they needed to make sure there were other services available for patients to go to when this happened. 

"Hopefully we won't have large numbers in our own personal practice of people who are very unwell all at once so it will be a sustained effort over the next six to 12 weeks as Omicron comes through." 

Murton said the industry was feeling under pressure and that the Ministry of Health and DHBs needed to recognise it was outside their normal work and provide extra support both in terms of staffing and financially to support them. 

From midnight tonight, restrictions on contacts of Covid cases will be loosened in anticipation of a wave of thousands of cases of the Omicron variant sweeping through the country. 

Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins is also expected to release a statement today outlining guidance for self-isolation for overseas arrivals once borders start re-opening. 

Phase 2 reduces isolation periods for contacts from 10 days to seven and means the focus of contact tracing will shift to "high-risk" exposure events. 

Everyone else effectively has to do their own contact tracing. Cases are now likely to be notified by a text message, rather than a phone call. 

Phase 2 also places greater reliance on rapid antigen tests (RATs) to reduce the burden on the health service and the economy. Employees who are part of the "critical workforce" can get out of their isolation requirements if they produce a negative RAT test. 

However, leading Māori doctor Dr Rawiri McKree Jansen thought New Zealand was one week too late moving into phase 2. 

Moving into phase 2 last week would have helped them prepare better under the new settings and address issues such as how to manage the most at-risk people. 

Under phase 2, the focus was put on those most at risk of being unwell rather than the vast majority of people that are going to have a mild or moderate illness. 

But doctors still didn't know what alternative accommodation was available to those at risk and Jansen said the options would be different for every region. 

"We are looking at what are the campervan options that might help whānau stay safe in houses. All of that needs to be in play now." 

While Omicron was spreading around the country, he admitted it was going "gang busters" in Auckland and agreed that what had been reported was only a fraction of the total number of cases out there. 

There was a moment for people to get boosters, and people should use this moment wisely. "It's a brilliant thing to do to look after you and your family. Get boosted - totally." 

Meanwhile, the Strategic Covid-19 Public Health Advisory Group chairman Sir David Skegg told RNZ he believed New Zealand was more prepared for the Omicron outbreak than any other country he could think of. 

"We knew this day would come, experience from other countries has shown us that we can't beat Omicron in the way we beat the original virus and to a larger extent Delta," he said. 

"The next few months are going to be very challenging for this country. We are going to experience something like what those other countries have. 

"I think we all need to fasten our seatbelts." 

Skegg warned people were going to get sick and a considerable number of people would die, but it was also going to affect business, social life and education. 

His greatest concern going into the outbreak was that not enough people were boosted: "I'm amazed that there are more than 1 million New Zealanders who are eligible for the booster dose who have not yet taken up this opportunity. This is crazy." 

But as phase 2 nears, Food and Grocery Council chief executive Katherine Rich said the Government couldn't have set up a more bureaucratic system for businesses trying to access rapid antigen tests (RATS). 

Under the new system, workers had to front up with at least six different pieces of paper - letters, IDs, order numbers and texts - which is why the council argued it would be better for these tests and the systems to be in the hands of businesses. 

If larger businesses couldn't handle the tests themselves then the Government ran the risk of a large number of workers who may be close contacts leaving their place of work and going right around the community to pick up these individual tests, she told AM. 

"There's a much more efficient way of doing this." 

Rich was pleased there had been a lot more honesty about how close contacts would be identified. For a long-time it had been the businesses had been identifying close contacts because they had waited "days and days" to hear from the Ministry of Health. 

It just made sense for the businesses to do the testing and this was happening in Australia rather than having to have a collection point for them, she said. 

"It would be much better if, as we thought, the tests would be dispatched to businesses so the test could be done there and then. It would be more efficient, it would be less costly for everyone and people can get back to work and keep those shelves full for New Zealanders." 

With the move to phase 2 of the Omicron response, National Party leader Christopher Luxon told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking that rapid antigen tests should be available to every worker. 

"Every worker should be able to have them and be able to do the test and work out if they can go to work, and more importantly if you want to go see your grandmother tonight you should be able to go down to the supermarket, do it and go off and see her." 

On the supply of RATs he said if it were him making the calls, he'd approve all of the suppliers Australia has already approved. 

"As a result, you'd have access to a whole commercial supply that you can get going with. 

"If you don't have RATs and they're not available to everyone and you can't test to work we're going to end up with very long isolation periods." 

On RATS being more accessible in other countries, he said the country could have been more prepared. 

"The benefit we've had is that we get a first-mover advantage because we're the last guys to get any development on Covid. 

"The rest of the world is moving on and we can't get the basics like a RAT, in Singapore you go to a vending machine and get it and you've been able to do it for a year."