Over the past two days, 5.2 million Rapid Antigen Tests arrived in the country.
The shipment comes as New Zealand wakes to life at Phase 3 of the Omicron outbreak reaponse this morning.
Another 10 million will arrive over the weekend, bringing the country's total supply of RATs in the country to more than 22 million by Monday.
"RATs will increasingly become the primary testing method in the community with daily case numbers expected to hit 10,000 very soon," sasys Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall,
"These tests will soon be shipped to community testing centres, GPs and pharmacies right across New Zealand. Businesses who need them as part of the Close Contact Exemption Scheme can also access them.
"Users who take a RAT will get their results within 20 minutes which will help identify cases sooner, reduce testing wait times and minimise disruption to business and ensure critical services and infrastructure workforce can continue to keep New Zealand operating.
"Despite significant global constraints, I'm pleased we have secured enough RATs to ensure that anyone who needs a test can get one throughout the Omicron outbreak.
"We have orders in place for 180 million RATs over the next six months."
In Phase Three, PCR tests will be used in hospitals, aged residential care facilities and GPs can order a PCR if they think it's necessary.
Read more about Phase 3 here.
4 comments
Good News.
Posted on 25-02-2022 13:06 | By morepork
Better late than never. All that remains now is to see how long it takes before ANYBODY can get their hands on a RAT kit. These should be freely available to everyone over-the-counter, without form-filling or going through hoops. These kits will make the difference between whether we are forced to re-institute lockdowns because the virus is simply out of control, or whether mostly-normal life can continue because people will know when they are infected, and can also test if they think they have been exposed, or simply need re-assurance as to their Covid status, and can self isolate if they need to, without burden on the health system. A critical resource that we should have had months (maybe even a year...) ago. The excuse for not distributing them is that they aren't 100% effective. Neither is the vaccine. RAT is over 85%;that's enough to be useful.
More RATs taken from business
Posted on 25-02-2022 13:10 | By an_alias
Just amazing, public will have access I got told in March by govt but we aren't going to share the ones we took from existing business orders. But we will give them free to all who arrive in NZ but not the tax payer
Finally
Posted on 25-02-2022 17:34 | By Kancho
Near a year late after the government senseless ban but soon we should be able to buy our own Rats
180 million over 6 months...
Posted on 26-02-2022 01:18 | By morepork
... means 30 million a month for a population of 5 million. That's less than TWO tests per week, per person. Hardly the 2 or 3 that is average for some countries... Sure, we know that every single person won't be tested every week, and certainly not 2 or 3 times, but wouldn't you feel better if you knew that they COULD be? It is a much better effort than we have seen so far, but I'm not convinced it is enough... The problem is that you can't just get them on demand. It takes planning, and this Government has not shown itself to be great in that department.
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