National wants twice-weekly RATs for teachers, students

Despite global shortages, the National leader says there are ways to get supplies.

The National Party wants to see increased rapid antigen test (RAT) use, isolation times reduced, and MIQ scrapped under its proposed plan to tackle Omicron.

But, party leader Christopher Luxon didn't know how many RATs would be needed to fulfill National's promises as he did not know the number of students and teachers in New Zealand. He also proposed a ban on unvaccinated non-Kiwis from visiting New Zealand when border restrictions began to ease to people isolating at home, rather than in MIQ.

Luxon revealed the party’s Omicron response plan to an audience of tourism operators and business people in Queenstown.

Among the proposals, the full suite of which would be announced later this week, was a promise that National would provide every school with enough RATs to surveillance test all of its staff and students twice a week.

When asked how many students and teachers the RATs would have to cover, Luxon could not say the exact number.

Luxon said RATs were becoming a part of life in places like schools overseas, as New South Wales and Victoria rolled out a mass surveillance testing programme for the first four weeks of the new school term.

When asked by 1News if he was "over-promising" in light of the high global demand of RATs, Luxon said there were ways of getting supplies to schools.

“Other countries can do it — New South Wales and Victoria this week, with kids back at school, were offering two RATs to every teacher, every staff member, every student. They also don’t think they’ve got enough and they want more.

“But, they’ve actually been able to secure supply to do that.”

Another reporter pointed out the Australian federal health department had to purchase about AU$62 million worth of RATs under urgency, which ended up tightening supplies of the tests in the open market.

Last week, National and ACT criticised the Government for "seizing" RATs from the private sector.

In response, Luxon said: “There is supply out there.”

He added that the Government could help increase supplies of RATs by approving more types of the tests for use in New Zealand.

When asked how many students and teachers the RATs would have to cover, Luxon said there were about 2500 schools around the country, but could not say the exact number of students and staff.

“The reality is, it’s very simple to do and other jurisdictions are doing it.”

Luxon said National wanted to let businesses order as many RATs as they would like to use in the workplace.

He also wanted the tests to be more widely available to the public.

“Let people take individual and personal responsibility by buying them from supermarkets and pharmacies as they wish,” he said.

“Not using rapid tests under Omicron is unforgivable because Omicron moves so quickly and infects so many people it will overwhelm our current PCR system.”

National said more businesses should be able to take part in the Government’s test to return to work scheme for critical workers who become close contacts of Omicron cases.

“They’ve got things around the wrong way. Every business should be able to allow their workers to test to work unless there’s good reason otherwise,” Luxon said.

The Government was expected to confirm which sectors could take part or apply to be part of the programme within two weeks.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said last week the Government wanted to reduce the number of people involved in the scheme to try and reduce the risk of Omicron transmission in the workplace.

National also wanted to reduce isolation times for Omicron cases and their contacts. Under the Government’s Omicron plan, isolation times won’t be reduced to 10 days for cases and seven for close contacts until phase two, which comes into force when daily cases hit 1000.

Currently, cases were told to isolate for 14 days and their close contacts for 10.

“Thousands of Kiwis will get Omicron — to keep our communities safe we need to make sure people actually go out and get tested, and this will happen less when isolation can be for up to 24 days as under the Government’s current plan,” Luxon said.

“Isolation should reduce to seven days for identified cases and close contacts — a period in line with many other countries. This will ensure we continue to slow the spread of Omicron while still allowing communities to keep functioning."

The party also wanted MIQ for fully vaccinated Kiwis to be scrapped immediately because it “made no sense” when Omicron was spreading in the community.

Instead, travellers who were fully vaccinated and tested Covid-negative should be able to self-isolate, Luxon said.

National would then phase out MIQ for work visa-holding critical workers, like health staff and teachers, then start to open the country to non-Kiwi tourists and international students, he said.

Luxon said, at that point, "unvaccinated non-Kiwis would be banned from coming to New Zealand".

“We need to be open for business,” he said of the borders.

“Kiwis’ ability to be able to get ahead and to enjoy a higher quality of life depends, frankly, on the size of our economic engine. Right now, that economic engine… needs some serious upgrading.”

Tuesday marks day two of National’s caucus retreat. On Monday, the party said it would have a new focus on addressing poverty.

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