New Zealand’s Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall said on Thursday that a new national testing policy will better safeguard high-risk groups by providing faster findings, greater certainty, reassurance, and less disturbance to daily life. New Zealand is moving to the Covid-19 Protection Framework on December 3, thus the new strategy is timely.

In the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), New Zealand has the largest number of tests per positive case, and border testing has prevented possible intrusions, according to Verrall. "We depended on highly sensitive PCR tests when we were pursuing an eradication approach since the cost of missing a case was too high," she said.

She went on to say that as more New Zealanders are protected by vaccinations, a broader choice of routine testing alternatives would be introduced, providing additional benefits such as accessibility, ease, and speed.  Testing, tracing, and swiftly isolating victims and their relationships will become even more crucial as more Covid-19 instances emerge across the country, according to Verrall.

"To find and minimise Covid-19, we will focus surveillance testing and contact tracing where it is most needed," she said, adding that nasopharyngeal PCR tests will continue to be used as the primary diagnostic test, but saliva-based PCR testing, rapid antigen testing, and rapid PCR tests will be used to supplement them.

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