2. Question No. 2—Prime MinisterHon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader—National) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 2—Prime Minister2. Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Leader—National) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of her Government's statements and actions related to the COVID-19 response?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. Despite COVID-19's global impact I'd like to note that New Zealanders have enjoyed more freedoms for longer periods of time than nearly any other country in the world and we've never taken for granted how special that was. But with COVID raging outside our borders and new more transmissible strains emerging we have to both make continual improvements to strengthen our border and continue to plan and prepare to manage any cases as they may arise in the most effective way possible. That is what we have done in our latest alert level changes.Hon Judith Collins: At what time did she learn of likely recent community cases of COVID-19 in the Auckland area?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: It would have been somewhere between 11 and midday—there or thereabouts—on Sunday. At that point of course in the early stages of cases the public health unit work very quickly to try and establish in the first instance whether we have a direct link between the border and the cases because that can give us an indication as to whether or not we have leakage at the border or whether or not we have a community outbreak and that determines the kind of response that we'll need.Hon Judith Collins: What actions were immediately taken to inform the public who might have been planning or attending large events?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course as I just distinguished you will recall for instance the cases that we had involving recent releases from a managed isolation facility where they then took a trip into the North. That was a situation where once we were able to establish the context of those cases we made a decision that we believed we could manage through our contact tracing our isolation regime and our rigorous testing without moving levels. So we try and establish that very very quickly. We gave ourselves quite a small time frame. We notified the public I believe it was at 1.30 p.m. and then gave ourselves a few hours to make that assessment on whether or not we needed to move alert levels which we did in the evening at 7 p.m.Hon Judith Collins: So what actions were taken to immediately inform the organisers of large events on Sunday after the Prime Minister was alerted?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: My understanding is that public health authorities were in contact with those events in Auckland. But again as I've just set out there were a few hours in which we were not yet clear on what response was going to be required. That was very clear at 7 p.m. You'll understand that there will be events at any given time when we have to respond where they may be caught right in the middle of us making decisions where at that point we just have to make decisions around whether or not they proceed because they've already begun. In the case of the Big Gay Out they essentially were already beginning at the time we were making some of these decisions.Hon Judith Collins: Is the Government considering daily saliva testing for border workers in addition to the current testing regime?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually we already are undertaking saliva testing for our most high-risk areas—our most high-risk places being of course our facilities where we bring in those who are positive for COVID. So the Jet Park in Auckland is a place where we're utilising saliva testing and have been for a little while now and doing the same of course in Christchurch and Wellington. The thing that I just wouldn't mind taking a moment to share with the member: as it's been explained to me saliva testing is not as accurate as PCR testing—the nasal swabs—which is why we like to use them because unlike other countries that like to undertake general surveillance and have a tolerance we need to pick up an individual case. At the moment in order to validate the process we need to have individual saliva tests sitting alongside individual PCR tests so they can't be pooled which means they take the same amount of lab capacity time and I understand processing as you would for PCR testing. The other issue is that to validate it to ensure it's a robust regime we have to have some positive cases going through it and because New Zealand has such low levels of COVID that makes the validation process a little more lengthy. You could I'm told skip that but I'm not sure anyone would want that situation. So broadly speaking—forgive the long answer—we of course are in favour; we just want to do it in a way that it adds something.David Seymour: Is the Prime Minister aware that an analysis of 16 different studies into people using saliva testing in Australia North America and Europe published by The Journal of American Medical Associations last month found that saliva testing is as accurate as PCR testing?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I imagine—look I'm not an expert on the testing regimes. I am of course sharing what has been shared with me directly from our health authorities. But I again put in the context here that we are doing this. I imagine that those processes have had validation so I would imagine we would want to go through the same process to make sure that we can get the same level of rigour with saliva testing as we do with PCR testing.David Seymour: If the technology works overseas and has been verified by 16 different studies to be as accurate as PCR testing are we testing saliva testing in New Zealand for ourselves because New Zealanders have different saliva from other countries?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The member misunderstands. My point is we have to do a validation process to get it under way here in New Zealand. We don't have the same level of COVID-19 present in New Zealand so that makes it a little more difficult. Again if the member would like a briefing from some of the experts that I rely on I would be happy to provide it but I'm not going to do anything that diminishes our regime. But equally we want to add to it which is why again we are doing saliva testing.Hon Judith Collins: When the Prime Minister says that we are doing saliva testing." does she mean daily saliva testing as has been advocated by medical experts in New Zealand?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That is my understanding in the facility that I've outlined.Hon Judith Collins: Does the Prime Minister believe that having daily saliva testing voluntary is going to be as effective as having it mandatory?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Again at this point in the validation process what we need to do is just make sure those who we're PCR testing we're saliva testing at the same time. It enables us to make sure that it's giving us that level of rigour. I don't rule out that we might do that in the future but that currently is the advice we've been given from experts on how to roll it out.Hon Judith Collins: Does she agree with Dr Janet Pitman of Rako Science who said a key advantage of the saliva test "was that high-frequency samples could be taken" and it "could deliver same-day results for swabs"?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: PCR testing and saliva testing in terms of processing I'm told you're looking at a very similar time frame.Chris Bishop: No it's not right. That's not right.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: That's the first thing. The second thing: I'm told that one of the—I'm glad there is an expert sitting there on saliva testing. Maybe I should bring him into the briefings. The other thing that I've been advised of course is that it is fair to say that actually if you're doing it daily then that in a way could compensate for any limitation in the level of accuracy. So I absolutely accept that. But if you are daily undertaking saliva testing across 12000 people in order to not reduce down the lab capacity that that would take up you'd want to do pooled samples. You need to do as I'm advised—Chris Bishop: Rako's private. It's a private lab.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: —you need to go through the process we're going through at the moment in order to get to that position. Again Mr Bishop perhaps you'd like to join the briefing with Mr Seymour.Hon Judith Collins: Does the Government know how many border workers are failing to undertake routine testing?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Those who are covered by the order are legally obliged. Their employers are legally obliged to ensure that they are being tested with the frequency set out in the order. They're also legally required to make sure that they are documenting that testing for their individual employees. The Ministry of Health has the ability through the aggregate data to get an insight into whether or not that testing is indeed taking place and to troubleshoot if it's not but the obligation sits at an agency or an employer level.Hon Judith Collins: Point of order. The question was "Does the Government know…" The answer is either yes or no.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I outlined we are able to see the overall figures of who is being tested at an aggregate level and if those numbers are not as high as the number of border workforces that are covered by the order we can then see at testing sites where the numbers are below and troubleshoot where that means an employer is not having individuals tested.SPEAKER: OK. I think I called the member on a point of order and she asked a question and the question was answered. I won't count that as one of the supplementaries but the member has been here long enough to know that she cannot insist on a yes/no answer."