6. Question No. 6—HealthDr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 6—Health6. Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Health: When he said he hadn't read the Ministry of Health's COVID-19 Testing Strategy for staff at the border why had he not read it?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Health): The Government testing strategy is the strategy decided by Cabinet. The document that the member refers to was prepared before I became the Minister of Health and informed the Cabinet paper on testing which was considered by Cabinet on Monday 22 June—also before I became the Minister of Health. Cabinet took decisions at that meeting and at subsequent meetings that went beyond the initial Ministry of Health strategy including on the issue of asymptomatic testing. It's the Government's approved testing strategy that I have been focused on the implementation of. Though I am a diligent and conscientious reader I have not read every document the Ministry of Health prepared before I became the Minister.Dr Shane Reti: Was this an important document for the Minister to read?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I think the member once again should have listened to the answers before reading pre-scripted supplementary questions. As I indicated the document was prepared before I became the Minister and it informed Cabinet's approved testing strategy. Of course as a member of Cabinet I read that document even before I became the Minister.Dr Shane Reti: Does he agree with the strategy recommendation that testing of all border-facing staff is not viable?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No. The advice at the time—and bearing in mind that the Government did get advice that there would be some difficulties around implementing that—was that we needed to find ways to get past those difficulties and make sure that that testing strategy was implemented and that's what we have done.Dr Shane Reti: Have all border-facing staff including staff at managed isolation facilities been tested for coronavirus and have they all got their results?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes. In terms of the managed isolation yes. In terms of those front-facing airport workers that are at higher risk yes. In terms of the port workers that are at higher risk yes. Has absolutely everybody who has been at the port for example been tested? The vast majority of them have been. There will still be some where they may have moved on for example or we may not have been able to get in touch with them. That would be a very small number of people. About 13000 people in the overall categories that I just mentioned have been tested over the last two weeks and a second sweep of testing those people is happening again now.Dr Shane Reti: Will it be compulsory for all border-facing staff including staff at managed isolation facilities to be tested weekly?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Not necessarily. The Government is currently doing a second sweep of everybody. By the end of that second sweep we will release a schedule that will set out how frequently people in different roles need to be tested. That will be based on a risk assessment so that the lowest risk people are tested less frequently and the higher risk people are tested more frequently.Dr Shane Reti: How infrequently could low-risk people be tested?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Those decisions have not yet been made.Dr Shane Reti: When he said last week that staff testing failures were reported to him but were not facility-specific why was the Jet Park a high-risk quarantine facility not reported separately?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: I reject the first part of the question; that's not what I said last week.