Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says New Zealanders can be confident in the Government's ability to carry out Covid-19 tests as we consider moving to Level 2.
"Testing is an essential part of New Zealand's elimination strategy and is the key starting point for identifying and containing the spread of the virus," Dr Bloomfield said.
"In order to continue moving down alert levels, New Zealanders need to have confidence that our testing strategy is working.
"We need to maintain our focus on ensuring all those who have symptoms are tested, cases are isolated and any close contacts identified and quarantined."
District Health Boards are in the process of submitting updated plans on how they will continue to test people fitting the Covid-19 case definition, and also contacts of cases where the source of the infection is unknown.
Asymptomatic people with a high risk of being exposed to Covid-19 like healthcare workers, aged care workers, essential workers and vulnerable group, will also undergo systematic regular testing.
"The next phase of our testing plan means DHBs will include further mobile and outreach testing services for priority groups such as Māori and Pacific people, and smaller rural and remote communities - ensuring everyone is able to access testing is important," Dr Bloomfield said.
"This next phase of testing is possible because of our world class network of laboratories, skilled scientists and technicians, and the strong ongoing supply of testing kits we’ve secured over the last three months.
"The first Covid-19 test was completed in New Zealand by ESR on the 1st of February - now we have the capacity to perform up to 12,535 tests per day.
"Already, more than 175,000 tests have been completed in New Zealand - this shows how quickly our health services were able to adapt to fight Covid-19.
"I'm confident we can adapt further as required to keep New Zealanders safe.
"Our testing positivity rate is now below 1 per cent - sitting at 0.85 per cent - and we're continuing to test widely.
"According to global statistics site Worldometer, New Zealand has the second lowest positivity rate of all those countries who've done 50,000 tests or more."
SHARE ME