Seymour David; Hipkins ChrisDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. Today's announcement will be saddening for many people in the Wellington region particularly those in hospitality who are able to open at alert level 2 but find it difficult to make money and actually be viable given the restrictions. It will also be a test of how far the Government's response has developed since we last faced these kinds of restrictions back in February. I have a series of questions that I hope the Minister can answer so we can better understand how that is going.This morning we heard from the Auditor-General that their office doesn't believe that the Government is prepared to do what in Britain has been called surge vaccination". They have talked about some advice for ring vaccination where vaccination is done at a point of outbreak and then goes out in concentric rings. I just wonder over the next four days if the Government has any plan to intensify vaccination in Wellington; does it have the ability to do that to the point that it will make any difference?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): That's not something we've discussed at this point. At the moment the risk in Wellington still remains low which is why we're talking about alert level 2 and not a lockdown or alert level 3 or above. In terms of re-allocating vaccine doses from other places around the country in order to move them to Wellington that is not something that we are currently planning to do. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): If level 2 is not a lockdown is level 3 a lockdown?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Yes people are required to stay at home at alert level 3; they are not at alert level 2. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): The Government received a report from Ayesha Verrall last year which set out a "gold standard" for contact tracing that was described as end-to-end contact tracing from index cases to all contacts within 96 hours or four days. Does the Government believe that it will achieve that standard this time having achieved—if I remember correctly—52 percent in both the August and February outbreaks?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Certainly the contact tracing measures are very good measures. They've recently been reviewed and the results of that review have yet to be formalised. We've looked at those in light of the fact that the contact tracing system—and Dr Verrall is now part of the Government—was established in the context of potential widespread community transmission. That is not what we have been dealing with most of the last year. So we've had another look at those and we'll make further decisions on whether any of those measures should be changed in due course. But the fact that we are on to this very early the fact that this is really only five days that we are talking about here—from first potential point of exposure through to today—is a good sign. The fact that our first test results are coming back negative is also a good sign. The teams were isolating people very very quickly. Again that is encouraging but we keep that under review.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): So if all the stars are aligning and the circumstances easier than those previously faced as a country is the Minister saying he expects contact tracing to reach the gold standard level set by Ayesha Verrall's report a year ago or not?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Well that's what they'll be aiming for.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): And does the Minister expect them to reach it?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): That will very much depend on the circumstances that we find ourselves facing over the next 48 to 72 hours.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Hope springs eternal. Testing—will there be rapid saliva testing available in Wellington over the coming days?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): In cases like this where we want accurate results we encourage people to get the nasal pharyngeal test because that is the gold standard for testing.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Does the Government have the capability to roll out saliva testing in a scenario like this? And does it acknowledge that if it was able to do so there might be less hesitancy from people to get tested? They could test more people faster and therefore more quickly isolate an outbreak.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): As we've canvassed well before saliva testing does have a role but it is less accurate. So in a situation like this where accuracy is important a 10 percent difference in accuracy can be quite material.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Does the Government have the ability to roll out saliva testing in circumstances it does think appropriate?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Well yes. And we are.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Could the Government roll out for example tens of thousands of saliva tests if they had them contracted? How are those contracts going?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): The member is asking a hypothetical question. One of the things that's important about testing is actually testing the right people rather than testing large volumes of people. So everyone in the debating chamber could go out and take a test now and it wouldn't necessarily tell us anything. Making sure that we're testing people who have symptoms or who have been at locations of interest is actually far more important.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Why does the Minister think any Government would randomly test the wrong people? Surely any testing should be targeted at people likely to be infected?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): Well I think the member has just reinforced my earlier point. If you're going to be targeting people you want to use the most accurate test available and that is a nasal pharyngeal polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I wonder if the Minister has paid any attention to the petition to this House of Darryl Clarke on behalf of event organisers particularly in light of the announcement overnight that the ASB Showgrounds in Greenlane Auckland has gone into liquidation following multimillion-dollar losses from alert level 2 closures and uncertainty about future alert levels. In that petition Darryl Clarke and his associates and his petitioners have presented a plan for event centres to be able to open under alert level 2 conditions just as shopping malls have thousands of people streaming in and out at alert level 2. Given the advent of the liquidation of ASB Showgrounds and an alert level 2 move within 24 hours will the Government now give that petition greater attention?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I do want to acknowledge that any alert level change has an impact for a wide variety of businesses community organisations and people. Our Government makes the decision around alert level escalation based on public health criteria that continues to guide the decision making. We acknowledge that those decisions have a significant impact for people but we have to continue to seek to eliminate COVID-19 from our community. Those businesses those organisations would suffer far worse consequences if we found ourselves in the situation of other countries that have not contained COVID-19 and ended up with widespread community outbreaks and rolling lockdowns.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Is it responsible for Government MPs to leave Wellington as the Minister announced that they would in his press conference at 1pm when businesses such as hospitality will suffer quite severely from the restrictions being placed on them?Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I think the member massively overestimates the amount of hospitality that members of this House consume. But there is not a hard border at alert level 2. People are free to continue to travel at alert level 2 but we do ask them to take their alert level with them."