15 Aug 2020

Health Minister Chris Hipkins

From Saturday Morning, 8:10 am on 15 August 2020

Health Minister Chris Hipkins told Kim Hill that in reviewing the lockdown next week, they will be looking at the spread of the virus outside of Auckland, cases without a clear link to the existing cluster, and finding a likely source of the cluster.
They would also be looking at genome sequencing and results of testing on border staff, he said.

"All of those things are useful, they tell us quite a lot and of course day-by-day that scientific work and that testing work being done, the puzzle becomes more and more into view.

"Talk of testing in wastewater to find traces of the viruses has been tried, he said, but the advice was that it was not at the point where there was an accurate reading on results yet.

"[ESR] are still experimenting with that, they're still trying to find a good methodology to be able to do wastewater testing. If we can add that to the toolkit, as soon as we can we will because it will be very helpful."