2. Question No 2—Prime MinisterDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No 2—Prime Minister2. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement that with Covid raging outside our borders and new more transmissible strains emerging we have had to both make continual improvements to strengthen our border while continuing to plan and prepare for managing any resurgence in the most effective way possible."?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Yes. Delta has been a game-changer and so of course that means that we've needed to change our plan. Since the last nationwide lockdown the all-of-Government group and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Ministry of Health have worked with all relevant agencies across Government to make continuous improvements to our alert level system and our response framework. These changes have been made in anticipation of the possibility of variants of concern—noting though that Delta and some of the research around Delta has really only emerged in recent months. These changes though include extensive use of whole genome sequencing; waste-water testing; boosting surge testing capacity; contact tracing capacity; requirements for face coverings; ongoing refinements to public communication and messaging; updates to the NZ COVID Tracer App and Bluetooth tracing; pre-departure testing; and improving managed isolation management including additional testing and cohorting. As I said as COVID has changed we have too.David Seymour: When she said there were 840000 doses of Pfizer vaccine onshore in New Zealand did she understand that at least 700000 of those must be outside warehouses in the distribution network or her and Chris Hipkins' numbers are impossible to reconcile?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: The Minister has already shared the breakdown of those numbers. And yes I'm aware of course that some are held centrally and as you would expect some are distributed across the nation ready for distribution every given day that our vaccination centres are running.David Seymour: Was a contract awarded in May to deliver up to 20000 saliva tests a week and if so what has the Government done since then to plan and prepare to deliver up to 20000 tests a week in light of the fact only 49 were done in the whole of month of July?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If the member wishes to put on notice specifics around when contracts are awarded with private labs he should feel free to do so and I'd be happy to come back to the House with specific details. But to come back to the principle of the question—which is essentially are we bringing alternative methods on stream?—the answer is yes. We've been using it at our managed isolation facilities. Of course the member will know because we've talked about this in here it's been sitting alongside the nasal swabbing. What we've been having discussions around is if we're going to increase the frequency of testing how can we use saliva as the replacement so that we aren't causing that ongoing discomfort and sometimes damage? Important to note that the saliva testing we've been using is still a polymerase chain reaction. So whilst labs with extra capacity and so on can process them quickly it's not an instant test but it does have the same level of accuracy that you would expect and that's really important for our programme.David Seymour: Why was waste water being tested at only 26 sites weekly at the beginning of this outbreak and subsequently had to be scaled up by a factor of four during the outbreak?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: So the waste-water testing and the decisions around that as I understand are predominantly taken between the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd (ESR) and the Ministry of Health. Of course—Hon Member: It's their fault!Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No not at all. I simply point out that where waste-water testing occurred is not a political decision; it's a decision made by our public health advisers and by ESR. As you'll see where we have waste-water testing—and as I understand it it is quite a difficult and onerous exercise as it's been explained to me—but where we might have concern then you might go in and start doing additional waste-water testing on much smaller areas. So when we got Warkworth we then had a breakdown of over 20 waste-water samples that were taken across different sites in Northland to add additional information. But sometimes those single sites then point you in the direction of subsites that you should then go and test within. So those are decisions ESR and Health make.David Seymour: Was Newsroom correct when they reported that the Government hasn't used Bluetooth tracing since the first day of the outbreak and is this an example of planning and preparing for the resurgence of COVID-19?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: According to the information that I have from the Ministry of Health of course there's the Bluetooth function and then there is the QR code which we also use for notifications. I understand that since Tuesday 17 August when we had case A first identified QR notifications had been sent to more than 3900 devices that had scanned a QR code at a location of interest in the relevant time frame. So you can see it is something that we've used but of course it's reliant on people using it and scanning in wherever they go in order for us to send those notifications out. For Bluetooth so far fewer than 10 notifications have been activated or sent and again that will just simply be reliant on how many people have activated Bluetooth on their phones. However we continue to train public health unit staff in the use of Bluetooth as part of contact tracing and so on and I understand that 330000 app users enabled Bluetooth tracing since 17 August. The one final thing I would say is that it is one-way. So our contact tracers don't get people's information because of privacy reasons. We don't get the information. So we still undertake contact tracing exercises so that we can follow up with people and ensure they are getting tested. These are additional layers that help us but they don't necessarily give us all of the certainty we would like when we're contact tracing because of those privacy reasons and the way they're used.David Seymour: Was the contact tracing system prepared for the current outbreak and does she agree with the statement that having to train 800 contact tracers after an outbreak is like trying to train an army after an invasion?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: No I disagree with that analogy entirely. As the member will be aware we of course have surge capacity for our contact tracing. So essentially what happens in an event of course is that we can use our national contact tracing system to spread across our public health units across the country to support a unit if they do have a particularly high number in their area. We can then bring on additional support for things like ongoing contact with known contacts welfare checks those additional pieces of contact for large numbers. So we had 30000 contacts where we needed to do symptoms checks and so on. That surge across our call centres led to us having over a thousand people that were supporting those calls but of course we used our public health units to do those really critical things like symptom checks with those who are symptomatic and are close contacts and case investigations.David Seymour: Is she aware that the aged-care sector has a shortage of over 900 nurses and what has the Government done to prepare to have adequate or at least some managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) availability reserved for boosting the health workforce?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I notice this is quite contrary to the primary question which asked about the continual improvements to strengthen our border. MIQ use is absolutely for the purposes of ensuring that we do not have a resurgence of COVID-19 within our borders and so it has been a critical critical tool. Unlike Australia which has taken in a third of the people that we have we've been maintaining in some cases between 4000 and 5000 people coming in every fortnight at our borders and have worked very hard to do that safely. We do have those in healthcare as critical workers who are able to enter into New Zealand despite the fact that we have our closed borders because we recognise that some parts of our health system are constrained.David Seymour: Does she agree with Chris Hipkins' statement to the House earlier today that the vaccination programme will be complete when everybody eligible has had an opportunity for a dose and if so when does she believe that will occur on her current forecasts?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Of course as we've said the bulk of our vaccines arrive across the course of October. And from this week everyone from the age of 12 and over becomes eligible to book and access vaccines and we will continue to do everything we can to make the vaccine as accessible as possible. That includes innovating it includes trying to take the vaccine out to those rural and isolated communities targeting our campaigns for harder to reach communities but we're also reliant on every single New Zealander every role model in this House every community leader any person of influence to encourage their communities to be vaccinated as well. We can do our bit but we need everyone to do theirs in ensuring that as many people as possible are vaccinated.David Seymour: Point of order Mr Speaker.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: If I may finish my answer.SPEAKER: Point of order David Seymour.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I hadn't finished my answer.SPEAKER: No I know you haven't. He has a right to have a point of order. It's very unusual that he'd have a point of order which is valid and if he is deliberately disrupting the Prime Minister with an invalid point of order it will be serious.David Seymour: Well first of all Mr Speaker just in response to that comment the last time I raised a point of order while the Prime Minister was speaking you upheld my point of order and asked her to properly address the question. I was simply making the point that I asked when people would have had an opportunity to be vaccinated. The Prime Minister's now been speaking for a long time about community leaders encouraging people to be vaccinated. The question is about the Government's capability to offer an opportunity not about whether or not people are willing to take it—it's completely the opposite in fact.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I answered—SPEAKER: No sorry. Very easy. I have a slight struggle dealing with both my hearing aids and my mask at the same time. No that's a very simple matter. Any judgment as to the length and relevance of the Prime Minister's question is one for me to make. The member knows that and if he does it again it will be the end of the supplementaries. The member's given up anyway—OK. Question No. 3 Dr Shane Reti.David Seymour: No. Point of order Mr Speaker. Can I—SPEAKER: I'll just get you to hang on a second. [Speaker adjusts hearing aids]David Seymour: I want you to hear this Mr Speaker.SPEAKER: Well I think it's appropriate that I do though I'm not quite sure that I want to!David Seymour: I hadn't given up; I'd simply used up the questions that I wanted to use today and I ask you: how does it help the order or the esteem of this House for you to make comments like that?SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I shouldn't have made the comment. Question No. 3 Dr Shane Reti.Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Speaking to the point of order Mr Speaker. I'd like to seek leave of the House to complete my answer to the member's question so I may fully satisfy the member's question as was my intent.SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that taking place? Sorry I'm working my way back through the process now. No I have called the next question so we will move on. And I apologise. What I should have done when I turned down the point of order was to go back to the Prime Minister. It was my error and I apologise. That's sort of two in a row."