7. Question No. 7—Prime MinisterDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 7—Prime Minister7. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement regarding raising COVID-19 alert levels Three days will give us time to gather further information undertake large scale testing and establish if there has been wider community transmission"; if so does she believe the alert levels will be able to be reduced at the end of these three days?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I stand by my statement. We took a decision to change alert levels quickly for 72 hours in line with our rapid response plan established in July last year to allow us to establish if we're able a probable or likely source and whether there was any wider community transmission. We know it's important to get on top of the virus early and acting quickly to control the virus is essential to our response. Cabinet will review these settings tomorrow in line with our rapid response plan taking into account all of the information we have to hand at the time.David Seymour: How many close and casual contacts have been identified of the three new community COVID-19 cases?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As of the latest update that I have in front of me for what we refer to as case A we have 36 close contacts 14 of which we have our negative results already through and we're awaiting the remainder. Of the casual contacts 1669—remembering we have the school involved there and so those are casual plus contacts. We already have reported against those: 277 have already come through and of course the remainder are pending—keeping in mind we had 15000 swabs taken yesterday. Case B: the close contact results have already come through those have been reported; there were only five of those. Of the casual plus contacts the ones that we're slightly less worried about of course we've already have six negative there and we're awaiting the final 46 results there as well.David Seymour: By what time does the Prime Minister expect the remaining test results of close and casual contacts to be reported?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: As I've said we've had roughly 15000 swabs taken. At 1 o'clock today Dr Bloomfield and the Minister of Health gave an update on the results we have to date. We of course tend to get some of that information coming through those labs in the morning and then we report them and so I expect on a cycle we hope to have as many of those as possible to be able to give us confidence. Again ARPHS—the Auckland Regional Public Health Service—have rightly prioritised close contacts and then they work through the casual contacts but we'll be reporting on them again tomorrow.David Seymour: Will the Government require negative tests on all currently identified close and casual contacts before changing alert levels?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: We take the information in its totality. We're very interested in what the close contacts tell us so those worksite contacts in particular even though in some cases they've been considered casual plus. We are very interested to know that of course two passengers who were travelling in a vehicle for a long time they've already come back negative. We're interested in what sewage testing tells us; we expect those results through tomorrow as well. We already have results from 10 February that tell us nothing was picked up. Then of course we'll want to see how many of the casual contacts we have through. So we take it in the round. There'll sometimes be legitimate reasons why we may struggle out of 1600 people to find maybe one or two so we're not always absolute but we take in a round as much information as we can.David Seymour: Conversely what would the Government have to see to extend the current alert levels beyond the initially promised three days?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: A good question from the member. One of the things that we're always looking out for if we for instance ever have a case—as we did in the August outbreak—that comes up through our community testing stations that we have not proactively asked to be tested and that we cannot immediately link that is cause for concern. That means that we have to find time and the ability to epidemiologically link how they came to be infected. If we can't do that that is a sign of community outbreak. So those are some of the things that make the wider surveillance testing across Auckland really important.David Seymour: Can the public take from the Prime Minister's answers that if the overwhelming majority of current tests of close and casual contacts come back negative over the next day and a half and there are no unexpected positive cases as the Prime Minister just outlined then alert levels will go back at least to level 2 if not to level 1 after the initial three-day period i.e. this Wednesday?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Those would all be really positive outcomes if that were to be what we find over the next 24 hours. Actually I think just as this House all New Zealanders have got really good at looking for the things that would concern us and the things that don't concern us and so they'll be looking at exactly the same data and information that we will be. You'll already know that if we have enough confidence we won't necessarily raise alert levels and equally if we have enough confidence we'll be willing to lower them. But I don't want to predetermine that decision until we get those results tomorrow and we have that Cabinet discussion."