Latest guidance and clinical guidelines on COVID-19 testing for the health sector: 28 January-3 March 2021
Kia ora koutou, As we settle into 2021, we’ll continue our regular reviews of our surveillance strategies and testing plans to ensure they’re fit for purpose and support us in achieving our goal of keeping COVID-19 out of Aotearoa New Zealand. Refreshed strategies, plans and testing guidance for the year ahead We’ve taken the opportunity to simplify our suite of strategies, plans and guidance. I would like to thank those of you who have provided input into these documents, some of which we’ve renamed to better reflect their purpose. We have updated our Surveillance strategy and introduced a new Testing Plan to replace our mid-term national testing strategy. The new Testing Plan outlines our approach for testing nationwide at a high level, taking a systematic, risk-based approach. It outlines three settings for testing: at the border, in the community and testing for contact tracing and cluster management, when required. We’ve also renamed the document we use to confirm our short-term focus for testing. Previously we called this document a Testing Strategy and sent an updated version to you on a regular basis, approximately every two weeks. This document is now called Testing Guidance for the Health Sector, and from this week’s edition onwards will have a slightly longer lifespan, which we’ll confirm each time we update and distribute it. This week’s edition covers a 5-week period from 28 January to 3 March. Monitoring global developments As 2021 gets up and running, we’ll continue to monitor global trends and, any risks posed by the new variant of the virus first identified in the UK/South Africa/Brazil. The emergence of new variants, some of which are more transmissible, underscores the need to continue to maintain strong border controls. Focus for the next five weeks From 28 January – 3 March 2021, our focus remains on continuing to implement a sufficient level of testing across New Zealand Aotearoa to ensure that any cases of COVID-19 are quickly identified and managed. This includes responding to the recent positive case in Northland, and providing reassurance that the border is secure through continued mandatory testing protocols for staff in those settings, for New Zealanders returning home, and for foreign nationals with workforce exemptions. As we learn more about the Northland case, our testing focus may change. We will work closely with you and stay in touch as the situation develops. I’d like to thank those of you who worked rapidly to implement community testing centres over the weekend.