COVID-19 update 27 October 2021

>> Kia ora koutou katoa good afternoon,
I will hand over to the Director-General for the update on daily cases and then I will talk about Alert Level restrictions in the Waikato, Schooling, early learning and tertiary education in Auckland and Waikato, a few words on vaccination and then we will have questions.

Dr Bloomfield.

>> Thank you.

Kia ora koutou katoa,
Today we have 74 new cases in the community.

68 in Auckland and six in the Waikato.

No cases in Northland today.

Our total in the outbreak is now 2832.

Pleasingly 1550 have now recovered.

There is one new acute case and three historical cases to report in managed isolation facilities in recent returnees from abroad.

As of 9 o'clock today 31 of today's cases are yet to be linked, with interviews underway.

Of the 79 cases reported yesterday just 19 remain unlinked at this point with investigations ongoing.

Today there are 41 people in hospital with COVID-19.

All in the Auckland region.

Five of those are in the ICU or a high dependency unit.

Yesterday 17,536 test processed, good volumes of testing around the country including in Auckland.

And yesterday was 13,578 swabs taken in Auckland, including in the community testing and also surveillance testing of people in the community.

20 testing centres opened in Auckland today and if you have any symptoms that could be suggestive of COVID, get tested.

On Auckland, as outlined by Health Minister Andrew Little earlier this month, home isolation is now being used in Auckland to support the wider system including the health system to manage people with COVID-19 in the community, those who can be safely managed in their own homes.

I did provide further detail on that but this is an interim approach at the moment.

In saying that, there are 562 cases and close contacts in the community across 216 households who are safely isolating at home with support from both health and social services providers.

This is part of an interim approach as we move to a longer term approach that will involve general practice and other community providers, both health and social sector providers, to look after people in their own homes.

Remembering this is part of our move to a highly vaccinated population where the vast majority of our cases, that is those who have been vaccinated and most of those who are unvaccinated, will have either very mild symptoms or just symptoms where they can be safely managed at home.

There is a range of criteria looked at to assess whether someone and there whanau can safely isolate at home, and that includes their health, medical needs and social supports, the nature of others in the household who may be vulnerable, in which case if there are vulnerable people in the household, a case may go into managed isolation still.

Most of all of course people are given the option to safely isolate at home and the feedback so far has been very positive, as the team reported to us this morning.

Turning to Waikato, as I said six of today's new cases are there.

These are all in Hamilton.

All are known contacts of existing cases and one was already in the quarantine facility and has returned a positive test.

Continuing to encourage testing regionwide in Waikato for anyone who has symptoms, and particularly in Te Awamutu , Otorohanga, and Tokoroa where there are dedicated testing sites.

The other thing is there were the close contacts of the person who travelled to Blenheim from the Waikato.

The two household contacts in Tokorua have returned negative test and the other two are isolating and have been tested.

Finally a shout out to the Ma Te Hurhuru youth group leading the vaccination event today.

You can take along your whole whanau, this is at Lambie Drive in Manukau.

Those who come can get merchandise, free coffee and ice cream.

And in the first few hours this morning they already administered hundreds of doses.

Back to you, Minister.

>> Waikato remains at Alert Level 3 however from 11:59pm tonight we will start to ease restrictions a little while we continue to stamp out the outbreak.

People in parts of the Waikato at Alert Level 3 will be able to meet for outdoor gatherings between two households with a maximum of 10 people and social distancing between the households.

Recreational activities will be expanded to include golf, hunting, boating, fishing and scuba diving with a maximum of 10 people involved.

People must stay within the Alert Level 3 boundary.

Face-to-face appointments with a number of healthcare providers can restart.

Early learning services will be able to reopen with a maximum of 10 children in each bubble, so it is the same stepped down setting we currently have operating in Auckland.

The first step on our stepped down Alert Level 3.

However the boundary before -- between Auckland and parts of the Waikato that are in a Alert Level 3 will remain in place and most people will not be permitted to travel.

As Dr Bloomfield said, cases in the Waikato are predominantly confined to a network of people who have not interacted as much in mainstream settings such as workplaces which means it is unlikely to have had significant or major exposure events.

But we are not yet comfortable to drop the Alert Level settings any lower while case numbers continue to creep up in the Waikato.

The situation in the area is not yet fully contained.

We are still aiming to stamp out this outbreak.

So cabinet will review the Alert Level on Monday and that will be along with our review of Auckland's Alert Level.

In the meantime to the people of Waikato we acknowledge your frustration.

These get vaccinated and encourage your friends and family to do so.

The sooner all parts of the country reach 90% vaccination level, the sooner we will all have certainty.

It is an achievable goal.

Northland remains at Alert Level 2 with no new cases reported since Sunday, however we know delta is highly transmissible and people in the region need to stay vigilant.

The people in Northland should continue to check with the Ministry of Health website for the locations of interest and monitor for symptoms.

Anyone who starts showing symptoms of COVID-19 should get tested as soon as possible.

That message of course applies across the country.

No new cases in the South Island following the positive case in Blenheim on Friday and South Island remains at Alert Level 2.

Again we want everyone in the South Island to remain vigilant and keep following the rules to help contain any potential spread.

Moving onto education, there are a lot of views about whether kids should be back at school and whether it is safe for them to be there.

I want to say these are some of the toughest decisions I have had to make as the Minister.

I was pleased to hear reports from those returning to school this week who are positive to get back into the classroom, positive about the opportunity to prepare for their NCEA exams.

A big thank you to those who have been working hard to get the schools ready for opening this week and welcome students back.

Many schools are reporting good numbers of students in attendance.

Some saying around half their students are back while others say the numbers are as high as 80%.

In terms of year school groups, years nine and 10, the rest of the secondary school system, when they can go back to face- to-face learning, we want to give senior secondary school students as much opportunity as possible to be interacting with their teachers and we don't want to have high concentrations.

We don't want secondary schools getting back to high concentration numbers straight away.

So we are doing more work around that and then we will come back with further detail.

I also know that parents with primary school aged children want to know when we think primary schools will reopen, and I know those students are looking forward to getting back to school as are their teachers.

I have asked the Ministry of Education to work with representatives from schools and kura over the coming week looking at how we can manage a staged return to school.

I am getting them to work on an indicative start date of 15 November, but I want to say that is an indicative start date and it is subject, as all things related to COVID are two events closer to the time.

It's likely the options they will be exploring involve groups attending on different days in order to keep numbers lower.

I have also asked them to consider more learning outside when we know the risk of the virus spreading is lower, when the weather allows for that to happen.

I acknowledge ongoing COVID-19 resection is have been challenging -- restrictions have been challenging to mental and physical and social well-being.

We want to see people get back to normal as soon as possible and we are working on a plan for how we can do that safely.

In terms of early learning we are working with the sector on how we can expand capacity to get more children back into early learning safely, and in tertiary we will be working with that sector to look at how we can increase the bubble size from the 10 it is now to around 20 from the 10 it is now to around 24 those labs and classes that cannot be run via remote learning -- 10 up to 20.

Finally we have a sick can milestone to acknowledge, 3 million -- significant milestone to acknowledge, 3 million New Zealanders are fully protected and vaccinated against COVID-19.

That means we're on our way to ensuring we have high enough levels of vaccination to protect us from COVID-19 and into the summer ahead.

Auckland is moving closer to 90% in all the three DHB areas which means when all those people get their second dose they will be able to shift to the more simple framework in terms of restrictions.

The rest of the country will get there soon but I want to underline the importance of that.

It should be clear to everybody by now despite everybody's best efforts, and they have been huge, we are more likely to see cases emerging outside of Auckland.

No country has been able to see about elder when it takes hold -- Delta and that will be the same for us.

It is not a question of whether they will emerge outside of Auckland but when.

It might sound stark but Delta is now on your doorstep.

The best thing that New Zealanders can do to protect themselves, their family, their friends and community, is to get vaccinated.

The best thing we can do to ensure greater freedoms and ensure we have greater freedoms over Christmas and summer, when I know people want to be able to get together, is to make sure we have as high a rate of vaccination as possible.

When we reach the point where COVID-19 does make it out of Auckland, the higher the rate of vaccination we have across the country, the less likely we are to have our summer plans disrupted through extra COVID-19 alert restrictions.

A really staggering statistic.

Of the 2759 cases in our current outbreak, just seven fully vaccinated people have needed to go to hospital.

The best thing you can do to stay out of hospital is to get vaccinated.

Happy to open up for questions.

>> The FDA approved advice for 12-year-olds, how long until the group and children can get their first dose

>> We are preparing to be ready to deliver doses as soon as we get the regulatory approvals to do it.

We have the network set up that we are able to operationalise that quite quickly.

I know the FDA approval was the first hurdle for our own approval processes here in New Zealand.

I know that they are ready to move quickly on an application and they will do it thoroughly as they always do but I know they are ready to move quickly but I will ask the director-general.

>> Yes, similar to here the first step in the process is the FDA has approved the vaccination.

But it then goes to a technical group therefore consideration of the balance of risks and benefits in that age group.

Similar to what will happen here.

We are expecting all of the information through from Pfizer in the first two weeks of November and colleagues are standing by to consider that.

It was interesting to read the FDA assessment and they will review that as well as the other data they get.

Pending that approval, it will then be referred to our technical advisory and they will provide advice and put it through to ministers.

I think the other thing that is important to be aware of here is that Pfizer is making an application for a paediatric version of their vaccine.

One of the important conversations we are having with Pfizer is around the accessibility of the paediatric version of the vaccine.

If you look at releases in the USA, they have got the paediatric version of the vaccine ready to go should be approved for use.

That is an important part of the consideration of both the approval process here and the timing of when we can roll out the vaccine.

>> A follow-up.

>> You so you are not comfortable loosening restrictions and cases are creeping up in Auckland and it's vastly more.

Is it fair to keep Waikato in such a tight lockdown

>> As I indicated we are seeing cases still come through in the Waikato.

It is not fully contained yet.

Some of today's cases for example our in central Hamilton.

We are aware that we are dealing with cases.

We want to still give Hamilton in the Waikato their best shot at stepping up the outbreak and this is away but we can do that.

>> What happened to the MIQ analysis

>> Ministers are meeting this afternoon to go through further details around changes in MIQ and we will be looking to announce those tomorrow.

>> What you think they've done that

What was the problem

>> We are still working our way through that.

There is a lot of complexity to consider, we have to consider the fact the situation inside and outside Auckland is different so we need to make sure we cover all the bases and the potential changes we are making there.

I'm also aware that people want to see a bit of a roadmap so even if changes, we will make some changes fairly quickly and then I think people will want to know what the roadmap is to further changes.

We want to be able to work through that and provide people with as much information as we can.

We are meeting again this afternoon because I'm aware there is an eagerness to find out more about that and so we will have further information on that tomorrow.

>> You are talking about stabbing it out in the Waikato.

When you going to give up that term

-- stamping it out.

It has been used so much and really realised.

>> Outside of Auckland at the moment with outbreaks like the one we are dealing with, stabbing it up remains the best course of action until get high rates of vaccination.

The sooner we get there the sooner we can adopt a different strategy which is the one the prime minister has already set out.

>> The prime minister last week said that the government believes it could stay about the outbreak in the Waikato.

Do you still believe that

>> I do absolutely but indications.

This one could have a long tail to it.

There is a question mark, it's certainly possible, it is what we are aiming towards but as we know with COVID-19 and with Delta in particular, things can overtake things.

As I said before, there is still the possibility that COVID-19 could break out of Auckland and that we could find ourselves in a different situation.

At the moment, continuing to stamp it out in the Waikato is the best option.

>> Why is the tail so long

Are people not following the rules

>> It is the nature of the cases we are dealing with there.

>> If you had a limited circuit breaker you could have saved 120 lives.

Versus if you hadn't.

What you take that modelling into.

>> You talking about the level false (

>> Why did you or did you

Why did you risk.

>> The modelling reply -- relies on the assumption that there is compliance with restrictions like we did at the beginning of imposing level for restrictions.

It is not true.

If you look across the Tasman to our mates across the ditch, they did not lower their alert level restrictions at all and they still got an explosion of cases after about 60 days of restrictions.

We have to bear in mind that that is a theoretical model based on a high degree of compliance with alert level for which we were already not seen by the time we made the decision to step down.

>> Why gamble with 120 lives

>> Not at all, I think stepping down restrictions on keeping people with you and willing to follow the restrictions is a better bet than keeping restrictions so high people won't follow them anymore and then you potentially end up with a worse outcome.

>> Was in compliance.

>> If you look across Auckland it was clear that we were starting to see the compliance with those rules free and enough around the edges.

It does not require a big number of people to stop following the rules for there to be a significant change in the overall level of risk.

>> Is about happening now

Alert level I, if that's the case.

If there is non- compliance.

>> As the Prime Minister set out late last week, we want to get to the 90% vaccination rate so that we can move into a different way of managing COVID-19.

>> How long do you think that vaccine certificates will be in use

>> We have not set a specific timeframe on it.

The legal framework will allow the use of vaccine certificates which will be within the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act framework.

That is a time-limited piece of legislation subject to periodic review and renewal by Parliament.

At some point it will not be renewed because it will not be justified anymore.

These requirements will be attached to that which means at some point they will expire and no longer apply.

>> Could that be months, years

>> I would not put a specific timeframe on it at the moment.

>> In the Waikato you talk about the difficulty of stamping it out there, the nature of the cases, what are the natures of the cases

>> They are in a more difficult to reach part of the community.

>> Isolation

>> And they are people who are more difficult to reach and difficult to contact race.

>> You say these people are being uncooperative

>> No.

>> What do you think you can >> As with some other groups we dealt with this is a more difficult to contact group group of places.

>> What does that mean

>> I want you the specifics of the cases and of their personal lives and their backgrounds.

>> I'm not asking >> But it is contact -- it is difficult.

>> What does that mean

>> It is more difficult to contact group tracer people.

>> On-site isolation, you said last week the number was around the 100 mark.

It is now 500.

That is a sizeable jump in a small amount of time.

Is that reflective of how much you are progressing the self isolation or what does that reflect

>> It does reflect that we are progressing the model and increasing the capacity to do that and that actually all of these people as I said I willing and interested in isolating at home and can do so safely.

We have got space still available in our quarantine facilities in Auckland for people who need it so it is a natural progression of the model and again it is consistent with the move to how we have imagined most cases will be managed in the community, not just in Auckland but around the area in the future where we have high vaccinations.

I should also just say on Alert Level 3 Order that we are more than a month into Alert Level 3 Order.

Our hospitalisation numbers are very manageable.

They dropped actually over the weekend.

We have five people in ACU and that number has not continued to increase.

There is no doubt that Alert Level 3 Order settings are making a big difference in keeping our case numbers low at the moment while we keep those vaccination rates up.

>> Could that jump reflect the spread of communities as well

>> Are you able to say whether the people who are self isolating, whether they fit into a particular demographic, who is actually using.

>> It is interestingly, if you look at the ethnic breakdown and age breakdown of the PeopleSoft isolating it is similar to the overall number of cases.

There is nothing particular about those groups.

Generally if there are large numbers of people in the household it is more difficult for people to isolate safely at home and remain apart from family members.

The household numbers tend to be a bit smaller now but we are seeing at the moment around half hour cases ethnic breakdown arm Maori, 18%, New Zealand European, at about 20% are Pacific and other ethnic groups.

There was nothing specific about this group there is a shift in the model and the social and health support for their to enable people to isolate safely at home.

>> Are you aware of anyone being sent to strangers information about vaccination

We are aware of a man who was sent COVID-19 information from a strange including his NHI number

>> Information about someone else

I'm not aware of that but it sounds like something we begin to follow-up.

Have to get the details on that and followed a particular one up.

>> On Facebook, quite concerning privacy breach.

>> I would need to look into it and just see what the circumstances were behind it.

We are very careful with our personal information and you will have noticed right through this program there has been.

I don't think we've had any incidents of privacy breaches so very keen to understand more about a particular case.

>> Minister, the past four weeks the prime Minister and deputy prime minister have said they would look at whether the cabinet documents and advice over the past couple of months relating to this outbreak would be released earlier.

Yesterday the parameters dead it was being asked about.

-- The Prime Minister said.

Will it be released next year

>> I have no issue with releasing it earlier so we will see if we can speed it up.

>> I just wanted to ask, the Pfizer data, they release the data, is Medsafe looking at the data now

>> I think so.

The Pfizer made more information public about the trial they did just over 2500, they put up their report, the FDA, the analysis, of the risks and benefits.

Last Friday, they are looking at all the data as it comes through but they haven't had a formal application.

Remembering it is partly the data about the clinical efficacy and safety but also the manufacturing data to be able to do the full assessment.

>> Do you have any estimate on how the process.

The least amount of time

And those jabs can be administered

>> I can't give an estimate.

We will need to wait.

What I would say is because this is a new age group and younger age group, Medsafe or do a very thorough process to look at the risks and benefits.

The FDA were careful to do that as well.

It took them longer to do this assessment than their assessment of boosters or even their original emergency approval.

It may well be that the team refers it to a special advisory group and independent advisory group as well.

>> With primary schools are you going out to the primary schools

And how students can safely come back.

Is that right

>> What we're doing is we've asked the Ministry of education to talk through with primary schools the operational feasibility of some of the approaches we've been talking about.

Bringing students back effectively on a roster so they are not all back at the same time.

Maximising the amount of time the kids spend outdoors, you know, if it's a good day, although potentially, because that helps to minimise the risk.

Working -- working through the logistical factors of that.

We are not comfortable opening yet which is why we flagged 15 November is the next milestone is a tentative date but I don't want to lock that in stone because a lot can happen over that 2.

5 week period.

>> What is the modelling with the case numbers

>> We would like to get a lot closer to 90% overall across Auckland before we get to that point.

I'm not saying no.

I am saying at this point about the 15th is where we think that might be a realistic time frame.

For having more kids back at primary school.

I will let you finish that, Benedict.

>> What's the issue with year nines and 10

>> The concentration.

if we have all of the 11 and 12 is back on site, and then you bring back the nine and 10, the schools will be pretty full.

We'll talk it through, but we are coming to a point where a number of those students will largely be off-site because of exams and exam preparation et cetera.

So we will look at how we can deal with the years nine and 10 as well.

Speaker or will they be back this year

>> I would like to see that if it is possible.

>> You have 10 weeks to come up with a plan -- you have had 10 weeks to come up with a plan to get these kids back, why haven't you done it by now

>> We have a variety of plans and in every situation you have to keep reviewing them because there are no hard and fast rules.

It bends on what we see on a daily basis.

-- it depends.

We want to see those kids back as safely and as quickly as we can but I know there is a lot of parental anxiety around that, too.

They don't want to see kids going back to school and be input at greater risk so they want to see we are doing this thoroughly and I can reassure them we are.

>> A top GP was sceptical of the ability to monitor cases at home because Healthline doesn't necessarily have that capability, so what is your response to that and whether you are confident Healthline will be able to cope with the number of calls that will be made as home isolation increases

>> I will make a point.

Primary care has a role.

GP practices, for example, who have a lot more patient- specific information are also involved in that process as our Maori and Pasifika health providers who also have more information in terms of what support those families might need.

Healthline play an important role with their phone calls, their checks and so on but they are not the only ones involved.

>> Following that, Healthline is involved in the current phase of the rollout as we move into the longer term approach.

There will be a much greater role of primary care and Maori and Pasifika providers with clinical health expertise.

So saying, Healthline, their expertise in being able to walk people through a conversation and determine expertly what level of care they might need, that is their routine business.

So they are very involved at the moment and they certainly have the capacity.

As we move into the next phase, and on the call this morning we had one of the GPs who is leading the conversation with general practice in Auckland and many of them are very enthusiastic and supportive of being involved.

Obviously they have knowledge of their patients so they are able to play a key role in determining what level of care that might be needed.

>> (INAUDIBLE)

>> I haven't been advised.

It's always possible there will be additional close contacts who may be isolating but I have not been advised any unlikely at this point.

>> We haven't had any further cases since the weekend and they are all in a known family group.

So very encouraging so far there has been no further cases, and all the other close contacts of those people who are already cases are isolating and none of them have returned a positive test.

>> There was a report it was being spread across Te Tai Tokerau and another report that a family was isolating, two siblings, two children, are we expecting (INAUDIBLE)

>> The seven cases are isolating across three households.

They are all related and in a relatively confined area in the mid-far north.

The public health unit and local health providers are in regular contact with those whanau to make sure they can isolate safely.

>> It's eight months since the first group of people got vaccinated in New Zealand, the data shows that while their protection from getting really sick is still pretty good, protection from getting sick at all has probably worsened rapidly, where are we at with the third dose

>> We are ready to go as soon as we get advice first shots are required.

My understanding from the Pfizer clinical trials around boosters is based on the median gap between the second and the third doses of about 11 months.

We are still within that window for those earliest people in New Zealand to have been vaccinated.

Since Dr Bloomfield and his colleagues, they will give us advice on when they think booster shots are desirable, we have access to the supplies to start that program and we are confident we will have enough to be able to finish a booster shot campaign if needed.

>> Medsafe have got the application and the data from Pfizer.

They are looking at that.

In parallel, our team is looking at that.

I think you are overstating the drop in effectiveness of the vaccine.

It was only last week Pfizer published the randomised controlled trial of the booster dose showing very good efficacy in bringing people's protection levels right up again, but the median at that time was very much within the time we are looking at.

As the minister said before, all going well, we are planning to start rolling out booster shots to those who were the first to those who were the 1st to receive their shots, we would be starting this side of Christmas.

>> One more, minister.

Can you explain [not audible]

>> Which ever way you cut the data that there will be a variety of different views on what the most appropriate dataset is.

Ultimately the dataset of people we have health data for is as good as any.

But I am comfortable, yes.

>> Plans in place for the drop in teachers with the vaccine mandate coming in

>> Ministry of Education will work closely with schools who could be affected by that.

I want to note whenever we have introduced a vaccination requirement, we have seen projections that we could lose lots of people out of those workforces and that has not tended to be the real experience.

As we get closer to the deadline, generally speaking, we see the number of people who are unwilling to be vaccinated decreasing significantly.

>> Following on from that, during this outbreak, how much consideration have you really given to mandating essential workers who are regularly crossing the borders like truck drivers, for instance.

Those people travelling the length of the country and potentially spreading the virus, lots of ministers have said you have thought about it and thought about it but have you really considered it at any point

>> We have given consideration.

There are a lot of practical considerations that make that operationally quite difficult.

And we don't know how long that internal boundary is going to be in place for either.

>> People who can cross the border, you have the paperwork, you know who they are and they are identified.

In the same way a person who works in a particular industry is identified and now you are rolling out quite a number of mandates in order for people to be vaccinated, so why is it any different now and why have we seen such reluctance during this Delta outbreak to target a particular group of people who are potentially high risk

>> We have looked at it and ultimately it was the logistical considerations that made it not something we wanted to implement in the short-term.

We have not ruled it out, we never ruled it out but we have to keep in mind the boundary is not permanent.

How long it is in place for we don't know.

>> Does it sit comfortable with you that you have unvaccinated people driving the length of the country through a Delta outbreak

>> We need to accept we need to keep the country moving and supply people with food, for example, and that means we need people travelling in and out of Auckland.

>> Dr Bloomfield, on this issue you raised at the start around vaccinations for the under 12 population, are you saying it is a different vaccine

Is that something we have an agreement for

And the 1 million doses in storage right now, will that not be used

>> That is something we are in conversation with Pfizer around.

What I am referring to is if you look at the FDA approval and the media stories about that, it was very clear that it is a paediatric formulation of the vaccine.

What our Medsafe team will be looking at is what are the differences between that formulation and the adult formulation, and what does that mean for the timing of a program we might be able to roll out

>> You need to reach out to Pfizer to get supply or can you use existing doses

>> It's already part of our discussions with Pfizer.

>> Minister and the Prime Minister said yesterday they were looking at new industries to extend the vaccine mandate to, transport and truck drivers are part of that or has that door been closed

>> We certainly haven't closed that door.

We will tell you at the time when we have more to say about it.

We are aware there is a lot of pressure from business as well who would like to see government being more proactive in some of these areas so we are working through it.

We need to have a public health justification for any extension of the vaccine mandates and we will continue to work through that.

>> (INAUDIBLE) mandate vaccines for businesses bigger than 100 people or regular testing, is that an option

>> We wouldn't rule anything in or out at this point.

We are effectively doing that for Education workers at the moment so we will see how it goes but I wouldn't rule out using that in other contexts.

>> One specific sector that has been calling for it is the construction sector.

They are a highly mobile workforce with subcontractors visiting multiple sites in a week so there is an incredible risk of spread if there is an outbreak.

Is there any thought about the construction workforce

>> I don't want to go through every workforce and rule them in or out but in this case I certainly wouldn't rule them in or out.

It is certainly a possibility.

>> Judith Collins said you should drop the vaccine certificates at 90% rather than introducing them that 90%, saying once we have that high level of coverage we shouldn't need vaccine certificates, what do you say to that

>> Difficult to keep track of the National Party's position.

That seems to be their position today only the other day they were saying we should be moving much more quickly to mandate vaccine certificates and the requirements should cover an even broader number of locations.

So I think their position changes by the day.

>> The government said last month you are going to be getting more advice around additional privacy legislation to strengthen the protection of people's contact tracing data, have you received this information yet

>> My expectation is the COVID- 19 public health response amendment bill currently before the select committee will be the vehicle that we are able to use to provide a much greater degree of certainty around privacy.

We have always been very clear that the information collected for contact tracing and vaccination and so on should only be used for that purpose and no other.

If we can add a couple of extra clauses into the legislation, that gives people an extra degree of comfort and I don't think anyone will have a problem with that.

So yes I don't expect that to happen eminently as the legislation progresses its way through its remaining stages.

>> Do you want to see rapid antigen testing at the boundary

The boundary is not permanent, but we don't know how long it will be there and it is there now, and we have heard professionals talking about how useful they could be.

I am asking your opinion of that.

>> I don't want to give a final view on that, I think rapid antigen testing will more likely be widely used in the next part of our COVID-19.

Rapid antigen testing has strengths and weaknesses.

Clearly they are less accurate than the PCR tests.

So they have a place but they have a place where they are used appropriately.

For example, someone showing symptoms, the last thing we want is then getting a rapid antigen test which is negative and think they are OK and then subsequently turning out to be positive.

As we move to using rapid antigen testing more, we have to educate people on the appropriate use of rapid antigen tests which means if you are symptomatically it's probably not the right test for you.

You are better to get a PCR test at that point.

I wouldn't rule them out though.

>> Primary contacts, then we can say PCR testing.

>> The demand for testing will increase exponentially and we don't want our labs tied up doing a whole lot of PCR tests everyday where other testing methodologies could be a substitute for a lot of those tests.

I will ask the Director-General to comment.

>> Two comments.

Rapid antigens tests are useful when observed.

In that situation, we are looking at this, they may well play a role in testing that workforce that is driving across the boundary but not at the boundary.

Because it is not rapid as in one or two minutes, it is 15, 20 minutes and requires it to be observed.

That's why we are working with employers so they can look at rapid antigen testing of their workforces on a more regular

>> You mention close contact in the vaccine and a workforce, all the time, they often don't have the concept -- consent of people in close contact.

There is no vaccine for that outbreak now.

Can you see the government doing that

>> Possibly.

I don't want to go to every workforce and off the top my head but all of the workforces have a vaccine requirement could be justified.

>> Service guidance