Hipkins ChrisGENERAL DEBATEHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for COVID-19 Response): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business.A little over a year ago COVID-19 burst its way onto the world stage and we have been grappling with that around the world ever since. It's worth remembering a few key numbers at this point: 1984 New Zealanders have tested positive for COVID-19 in that time; 356 other probable cases have been identified bringing our total to 2340. It is also important at this point that we recall the 21 people—21 New Zealanders—who have lost their life to COVID-19 and the five others who are suspected to have lost their lives to COVID-19. Those numbers whilst they are sobering are the envy of many around the world. COVID-19 has had far less of an impact in New Zealand than so many other places around the world—and I say that not out of self-congratulations as members opposite will occasionally accuse me and the Government of but as an acknowledgment to the contribution of all New Zealanders. That result was not achieved by the Government and by the Government acting alone; it was achieved by all New Zealanders all of the team of 5 million. But I do want to single out some in particular starting with our essential workers—those people who kept New Zealand moving in the early parts of our COVID-19 response the people working on the front lines in our supermarkets driving our trucks keeping the country going keeping the country fed keeping the lights on whilst we had our lockdown—and I do want to acknowledge them again. I want to particularly thank as I did yesterday our border workers: the airline crews who are doing absolutely everything they can to keep COVID-19 out of New Zealand whilst also keeping essential supplies and people coming and going from New Zealand; the staff who are working at our ports and our airports who are going the extra mile again to keep themselves their whānau and our communities safe. Those who work in our managed isolation and our quarantine facilities: the cleaners the security guards the caretakers the caterers the Defence Force workers the police—a big thank you on behalf of all New Zealanders for your contribution. I want to thank our health workers those particularly who are doing the testing for COVID-19 in our managed isolation and quarantine facilities at our airports at our ports and in our communities; the lab workers who process all of those results—and they are particularly busy at the moment processing a significant number of results and we thank them for their contribution. I want to acknowledge those who have been working on the preparation for the roll-out of our vaccine and those who worked on securing the supplies of vaccine for New Zealand. They've been incredibly effective in that job and we are looking forward to seeing the vaccine starting to roll out from Saturday. That's been a significant effort.When we started dealing with this a year ago there was no rule book for COVID-19. Around the world every country had to grapple with the challenge of how to respond; we all had to make things up as we went along. And I want to acknowledge that we've got a system that has learnt to learn—a system that learns and adapts that incorporates the lessons from abroad where they are appropriate and builds those into New Zealand's response. We have a response that strengthens day by day that requires constant vigilance and constant effort. The work in our managed isolation facilities to continue to identify risks and minimise them as much as possible has been integral to our response. I've always said there is no such thing as a 100 percent guarantee when it comes to COVID19 and sadly that will always be the case for as long as COVID-19 is with us. But we can all play our part as members of the team of 5 million in keeping COVID-19 out and we can start with the simple things: scanning QR codes. Everyone's human. Now and then people will forget. I went out for lunch today. I walked into one place and walked straight out because I didn't see anything I wanted. I forgot to scan. As I was walking to the next place I pulled out my phone to scan and I remembered that I'd forgotten the last place so I entered a manual entry in. Everyone's human—everyone will forget from time to time but we can all do something about that. We can all play our part. Scanning QR codes keeping accurate records of where you've been and who you've been in contact with gets us ahead of the curve. That means when we get a case we can run it to ground quickly and we don't need to escalate our alert levels. Every one of us can play a part in that: keeping our personal hygiene measures intact washing our hands coughing into our elbows staying home if we are sick—I cannot stress that enough—self-isolate as you wait for your test results if you've had a test. These are all things that we can do to keep COVID-19 out of our community. New Zealanders have sacrificed a lot for the success we have achieved so far and there are more sacrifices to be made including by those who are in Auckland right now and those around the rest of the country dealing with alert level 2. I thank them for the contribution and the sacrifice that they have been making.