Hipkins ChrisHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): On Saturday morning early on Saturday morning I received one of those phone calls which I dread a phone call from the Director-General of Health to say that another COVID-19 case had been identified in the New Zealand community. These phone calls don't come all that often to me and it is a mark of New Zealand's success but in fact one case in the community would trigger a series of events that we have seen in the last sort of 48 to 72 hours. Other places around the world they've lost count of the number of cases that they are dealing with on a daily basis. We are very fortunate in our team of 5 million to be in the position that we are in and every New Zealander deserves credit for that. Whenever a new community case comes to light as we saw over the weekend we do need to take stock. We need to take time to thoroughly investigate that particular case. Now there are two parallel work streams that happen here two parallel priorities. The first is to identify everybody that could be at risk because of that case. That is the first and foremost priority. Stamp it out make sure it's not spreading so identify that person's close contacts make sure they are tested make sure they are isolating. And our systems in that regard have improved exponentially. They continue to strengthen every day and we've seen that in the fact that we have dealt with a number of cases where we've not needed to escalate alert levels. Our system is continuously improving. So that's the first priority. The second priority is to identify how the person could have contracted COVID-19 in the first place and we have to do those two things in parallel. We can't do it neatly one after the other. The case investigation process looks at both of those things because it's important that we understand how the person got it first of all to identify what the risk associated with that is and then second of all to try and make sure that a similar group of cases can't happen again in the future. What we've seen throughout our COVID-19 response is that we do have a system focused on continuous improvement a system that is focused on learning from our experiences. What you'll see in our system and what New Zealanders will see in our system is that where a weakness is identified we fix that weakness and we don't see a repeat of what we have seen in the past. That is a sign of a system that's learning and a system that is improving.COVID-19 and the challenge that it poses for us is unprecedented in New Zealand's history. It's unprecedented globally. We have had one of the most successful responses in the world. We've had one of the lowest number of cases per capita of COVID-19 in the world. We've had one of the highest rates of testing per capita in the world. We've had one of the lowest mortality rates from COVID-19 in the world. These are things that New Zealanders can be proud of. But the Government contrary to what you might have just heard has never celebrated victory in our response to COVID-19. We have always been aware that we must remain vigilant that COVID-19 is going to be with us for some time and that we need to continue looking for every weakness in our system and every opportunity that we have to improve what we're doing and that is exactly what we have continued to do.Throughout the time that I have been involved in this I've heard a lot of different suggested responses to what we should be doing—we should close the border completely depending on who you listen to on any particular given day. Never mind the fact that that would send all of our exporters to the wall that our health system would grind to a halt because medical supplies would stop coming into the country—David Seymour: Who suggested that? Name one.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: —and the carnage that would cause—some of the epidemiologists who are quoted by the members opposite have argued exactly that—and it would do untold damage to New Zealand. Then on the other hand the next day we'll get a claim from the Opposition saying we're being too restrictive we're not moving fast enough to open up to the rest of the world we're not moving fast enough on the trans-Tasman bubble and why weren't we opening up to China more quickly. It wasn't that long ago that they were arguing that.Our Government has taken a very precautionary approach to our COVID-19 response and we will continue to do that. We do want to see our economy continue to move. Our economy is doing better than most around the world and it is our response to COVID-19 that has allowed us to have those economic conditions. And again all New Zealanders can be proud of that. When we do see a positive case in our community with a link to the border I hear the word or the phrase a failure at the border". I want to just take a moment to reflect on what that means for the people who get out of bed every day and go to work at our border to keep New Zealand safe. I'm talking about the people who greet people when they come off the planes and do their health assessment as they come off the plane. I'm talking about the people who work in our managed isolation facilities who provide care for those people who have done nothing wrong. The only thing that they have done is want to come home to New Zealand. They've done nothing wrong. They're not criminals. They're not in our managed isolation facilities for punishment. They are there because they're playing their part as members of the team of 5 million and keeping the rest of the country safe. When I hear the language of "failure at the border" that is a direct attack on the people who are working at the border to keep New Zealand safe. One of our challenges we've got at the border is increasingly people don't want to work there. One of the biggest areas of risk we've got at the border is that people are giving up working at the border and that is actually a risk to public health. [Interruption] And the ongoing attacks on them not just from the members opposite but from some epidemiologists who should know better is actually increasing the risk to New Zealand's public health. The people who work at our border are our national heroes. They deserve nothing but our thanks for the sacrifice that they are making for New Zealand. As I mentioned in question time today those people working on Air New Zealand flights who are vital—who are vital—to keeping our country moving they make sure that our medical supplies get to New Zealand. They make sure that our exports are reaching the rest of the world. They make sure that New Zealanders who need to return home can return home. Some of them are being tested so often they're being tested more than once a day. They're being tested more than once a day because they may be tested before they leave and they may be tested when they arrive at the next place and they may be tested before they leave that place as well. Again I want to take my hat off and say thank you to them for the sacrifice that they are making to keep all New Zealanders safe. To come back to the issue at hand the cases that we are investigating at the moment it is too soon to jump to conclusions about what has happened here too soon to be drawing conclusions about where there may be weakness in the system. We do not know that it might have come from the laundry. That is a possibility. It's one of those things that's being investigated. A lot of people a lot of experts will say that's highly unlikely. But the reality is every potential scenario we're looking at with regard to these three cases falls into the highly unlikely category. So we can do everything we can to keep New Zealanders safe. We can try very hard to eliminate all risk. There is no such thing as eliminating every risk of COVID-19. It's a tricky virus. It finds a way and we have seen that repeatedly but we have done very well in New Zealand. Our success is obvious but it is not over and it won't be over for some time. We're gearing up to roll out vaccines. That's going to take some time. And as we roll out the vaccines the risk will still be with us and we still need to be willing to respond when we need to. What we've seen from New Zealanders in the last 48 hours again is that New Zealanders are willing to play their part in the team of 5 million and I thank New Zealanders. I want to thank those small businesses who have been affected by the decision that we as a Government have had to take to move Auckland back to alert level 3 and the rest of the country back to alert level 2. I want to acknowledge that that is creating hardship for some people and for some businesses. And I want to acknowledge that we are also doing as much as we can as a Government to support New Zealanders through the challenges that COVID-19 has created. What you'll see in our response is a system where we are constantly improving. We're constantly looking to eliminate risk—reduce risk I should say. I can't say eliminate risk; there is no such thing as eliminating risk when it comes to COVID-19 but reduce risk as much as possible. And you see that in the fact that our system is always changing. We are always doing new things. You see that in day zero day one testing. People are being tested as soon as they arrive despite the fact that when we set it up the day three and day 12 tests were regarded as the gold standard. We've improved that further by introducing the day one day zero test. We've also introduced pre-departure testing something that wasn't feasible when it was first mooted but is now feasible and it's been added to our overall response. We do regular audits of our infection prevention and control in our managed isolation facilities at our border to identify where there may be further risk and make sure we're taking additional measures to minimise that risk as much as possible. You see that in the changes to personal protective equipment requirements the use of N95 masks instead of surgical masks for those who are coming into contact with people who have come across the border. All of those things are continuing to improve. You see that in saliva testing. Saliva testing—it is not as David Seymour suggested that we are reluctant to do it; it is that we want to make sure when we do it that the science is right and that we're going to get valid test results from that and that is what we are continuing to do. As I've indicated we have developed our systems to the point where we're able to respond to cases without alert level escalation but we can never eliminate the possibility that something that's highly unlikely can happen. That has happened with the cold store cases that we dealt with in August last year and it has happened in these cases here. There is no likely known identified source of transmission at this point so we continue to investigate to see if we can identify what that was. Bearing in mind that in the August case we were not able to identify conclusively how COVID-19 made it to that cold store which then caused the restrictions that we had and we may not be able to find to the point of any kind of certainty what has happened here. But what we can do at this point and why we need the lockdown is we've got to eliminate the risk of it having been out there spreading in the community. That is what widespread testing is all about. That is what these restrictions are all about. We have done this before. The team of 5 million has risen to the challenge before and it is doing so again. There are no easy options here. If there were we would have done them by now. We are always looking for how we can improve our response. We make changes where they are sensible to do so where the science and the evidence backs them up."