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Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says all border workers who need to be regularly tested will be able to have saliva PCR tests instead of the more invasive nasopharyngeal testing from mid-August.
Such testing will be rolled out for those who need to be tested every week, and progessively rolled out out for the other workers over several months.
Hipkins and Joint Head of Managed Isolation Megan Main held a Covid-19 briefing at the Beehive this afternoon.
Hipkins said the vaccine delivery schedule for August was confirmed for 1.5 million doses, and it was important now there were many ways people could get vaccinated.
This included mass vaccination events - the first being in Manukau for three days from the end of July.
The mass vaccination would be targeted at Manukau Institute of Technology students and their families - and would be an opportunity for people in group 4 to be vaccinated ahead of schedule.
People would be able to book their second vaccination for six weeks later at another mass vaccination event.
South Auckland was an area of focus for mass vaccination events, Hipkins said, because of the population and exposure to the border. Other population centres with density could expect to see similar events to "top up" vaccination rates.
Overall DHBs were tracking about 6 percent ahead of schedule on vaccinations, Hipkins said. There had been 1,404,343 vaccination doses delivered, including 564,789 who had received their second dose and were thus fully vaccinated.
Saliva testing
The Ministry of Health has been reluctant to allow saliva testing to replace the invasive nasopharyngeal PCR test, even though that has been recommended by the independent advisory group chaired by Sir Brian Roche.
Roche had previously said in September last year - as part of the testing review he did with Heather Simpson - that saliva testing should be rolled out as quickly as possible.
Hipkins said it was hoped this change would boost testing levels among managed and isolation quarantine (MIQ) staff and advice a week ago from the Ministry had informed the decision to allow saliva testing to replace nasal swabs.
The feedback, with saliva testing at a limited number of sites, was that if they had to do nasal as well there was no real benefit.
It was hoped now there would be much more "enthusiasm" and saliva testing would be rolled out to more sites, Hipkins said.
The advice continued to be for diagnostic purposes if someone had symptoms nasal testing was the surest option, he said.
Hipkins said the Ministry had been "cautious" in its advice previously. He acknowledged they needed to move faster in responding and adopting, while investigating robustly, as new technologies became available.
The National Party has also been calling for saliva testing to be more widely available for months, and while the Health Ministry was ready to roll out daily saliva testing at the border in January, so far only 400 samples have been taken.
Hipkins has previously suggested that worker reluctance is a reason for the low take-up.
"The Ministry of Health's advice is that saliva testing is an increasingly viable and reliable method for public health surveillance purposes," Hipkins said today.
The Ministry of Health was issuing 16 $300 infringement notices to border workers who had not complied with testing orders, he said
Ballot system considered for MIQ bookings
Joint Head of Managed Isolation Megan Main said in regards to bots assisting with bookings for MIQ slots, the tech could help but a person was still needed to do the actual booking.
The aim was to make obtaining MIQ spots as equitable as possible. A US-style green card lottery ballot system has been considered, as well as introducing a waiting list, she said.
Main said the Government needed to be careful they kept the system stable. Demand for spots was currently very high.
Hipkins said regardless of what system the Government introduced to allocate MIQ spots to returning New Zealanders, demand would continue to out-strip supply.
"There is a reason I stood here several months ago and said to New Zealanders who need to come home 'now is good' - it's because we had space and because we knew that there was a likelihood at some time in the future demand would once again build to out-strip supply.
"New Zealanders abroad wanting to come home were forewarned of that potential quite some time ago."
Infected mariners
Yesterday, 13 more crew members tested positive for Covid-19 in managed isolation after coming off a ship docked at Wellington - and another ship has docked at Port Taranaki with crew suffering "flu-like" symptoms.
The 15 crew members from the Spanish-flagged Viking Bay deep sea vessel, which included the two people who tested positive last week, are in a quarantine facility in Wellington.
All those who had interacted with the mariners had been fully vaccinated and were protected, Hipkins said.
New Zealand's role with helping re-crew vessels was to help them arrive into the country and transfer to vessels as smoothly as possible. That had been done in this case, Hipkins said.
It was his understanding the mariners had the Delta variant, Hipkins said.
One of the five Covid-negative crew members has become symptomatic and been moved to the Grand Mercure MIQ facility.
Joint Head of Managed Isolation Megan Main said the mariners at the Grand Mercure were completely separated from other guests.
The infected crew members were at sea and needed assistance and New Zealand had an obligation to provide them assistance, Hipkins said.
Those who had arrived by plane to replace the crew members had all had pre-departure testing.
Testing continues for the vessel, where reports of flu-like illnesses originated last week. It had applied for a change of crew while berthed at Port Taranaki.
Amid criticism for allowing international mariners infected with Covid-19 onshore putting the country at risk, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today that New Zealand "has an obligation" to help those in distress.
She was, however, asking more questions about obligations to help with re-crewing efforts for similar foreign-flagged vessels that had no economic interest and were "against our environmental interests".
Auckland University professor Des Gorman told Newstalk ZB he was "very concerned" and said the mariners should never have been allowed onshore in the first place.
The whole point of the quarantine system was to leave the virus offshore, with measures like pre-departure testing, he said.
"Here we have shifted the risk from offshore to onshore. Now we have 15 highly infectious people sitting in a building in Wellington. This is not how you do business."
He said it was "very likely" they had the highly infectious Delta variant and said they should be confined to their hotel rooms to prevent any outbreak.
Ardern said the crew aboard the Viking Bay should not have been kept at sea. New Zealand had an obligation to those who "may be in distress or need medical assistance" within the country's geographical boundaries.
PM spoke to Pfizer boss
The New Zealand Herald revealed today that the Prime Minister has spoken with Pfizer boss Dr Albert Bourla twice this year, including once last week after the delivery of a crucial shipment of Pfizer doses.
The Government has faced criticism over its vaccine rollout, and Hipkins has conceded expectations could have been better managed - especially for group 3, including those 65 and over.
The Government announced its first purchase agreement with Pfizer in October last year - for 1.5 million doses - subject to the vaccine successfully completing all clinical trials and receiving Medsafe approval.
Medsafe approved Pfizer on February 3, and the vaccine rollout started later that month. As of last Wednesday, just over 500,000 people - about 10 per cent of the population - were fully vaccinated.