The Associate Health Minister says Auckland should have moved to using rapid antigen tests (RATs) earlier than it did.
Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall says the move to rapid antigen testing in Auckland was not fast enough. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Dr Ayesha Verrall told Morning Report the backlog of PCR tests collected in Auckland last month may have been avoided if the move to rapid antigen testing in the city had gone ahead sooner.
"We should've changed to RATs perhaps two days earlier in Auckland, to avoid that PCR backlog of tests."
"We can't get back to that 'no risk' situation" - Associate Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall
RATs are now the primary method of testing for Covid-19 in the community, with 97 percent of the cases reported yesterday detected using them.
Verrall said New Zealand had a "healthy supply" of the tests, with 14 million in stock and an additional 10 million arriving in the country this week.
She said it was always known that the move to RATs would be necessary but acknowledged there was "a problem with when we timed that shift and the director-general [of health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield] is going back to look into that".
Verrall denied that New Zealand should have made the move to general RAT testing months earlier than it did.
"I totally stand by the idea that PCR was the most appropriate test through all of 2020, through all of 2021 - including the Delta outbreak."
Although RATs were less sensitive than PCR tests, Verrall said they were a useful mitigation tool in the midst of the country's current Omicron outbreak.
"We've set up a system where we think we can identify ... the majority of infectious people - and that requires people accessing and using the tests themselves."
It was announced earlier this week that the isolation period for people infected with Covid-19 and their household contacts was being reduced from 10 days to seven, from 11.59pm Friday 11 March.
Cases would be required to have a RAT on days three and seven of their isolation period, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said.
Canterbury University mathematics professor and Covid-19 modeller Michael Plank yesterday told RNZ he supported the reduced isolation period but would like to see a "test to release" system implemented, to identify any people who were still infectious after that seven day period.
Verrall said the issue of some people still being infectious after their isolation period was complete could "only be mitigated to some extent" by RATs because they did not have perfect sensitivity.
"We are not in the situation where we'll get the benefit of a long period of isolation where we can confirm ... a lack of infectivity with a high reliability test."
She said RATs were being used to "substantially lower the risk of infectious people being in the community, but we can't get back to that 'no risk' situation".
The reduced isolation period was based on evidence showing the majority of cases would no longer be infectious after seven days, Verrall said.