Eliora
Who in their right mind would queue for up to 9 hours for a nasal swab by a PPE attired nurse, working at a Testing Station?
The answer is any New Zealander who needs to be tested for COVID-19. Kiwis must queue for hours to get a long swab poked up their nose. These Kiwis are in their right mind but are nearly losing their mind being trapped for hours inside their cars. There have been reports of stressed parents with their children bored stiff in the car. Or worse, imagine sitting on a bicycle as Green MP Julie Anne Genter would promote.
Kiwis are beginning to get annoyed and wonder why Ardern continues to withhold the much less invasive saliva tests. They also wonder why she is not making coronavirus drug treatments that are available in other countries available for ordinary Kiwis here in New Zealand.
Clinicians have been asking for the simpler and quicker saliva test instead of the rather unpleasant, time-consuming nasal swab. Boxes of PCR saliva tests can be obtained and completed at home in the UK and across Europe with a test repeated every few days. The household person can take a photo ID, send it off and in 20 minutes get the result. Australians can also be provided with a self-test to be handed in a sealed kit to a medical centre.
Ardern likes everybody to believe she is the best in the world at handling a crisis, but Kiwis know it comes with a catch for people living here. Let’s have a closer look at some things that are available in other countries that are withheld from New Zealanders.
The UK has approved Regeneron and Roche’s covid antibody drug Ronapreve. Donald Trump received this medication when he had COVID-19 (October 2020) and it has been approved since November 2020 in the USA. This drug uses two different man-made antibodies casirivimab and imdevimab, to fight the virus.
Reuters 20 Aug 21
Britain’s medicines and healthcare regulatory agency (MHRA) gave Ronapreve the green light, as it reduces risk of hospitalisation by 70%. This medication uses antibodies which bind to the virus to stop it invading cells, therefore it dramatically reduces the risk of catching COVID-19 and gives protection for a month. It is expensive, but now available.
dailymail.co.uk
However, at the cost of £2000 per patient, it is unlikely to be rolled out widely as a preventative. Experts today called for it to be targeted at the most vulnerable Britons.
Mail Online Aug 21
Since April 2020 home kits for saliva tests and finger-prick tests have been available for Britons.
In the UK, a random study was conducted by Imperial College, London and Ipsos Mori, an independent research organisation.
REACT (REal-time Assessment of Community Transmission) is a series of studies that are using home testing to improve our understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic is progressing across England. This major research programme was commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and is being carried out by Imperial College London in partnership with Ipsos MORI and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
ipsos.com
REACT takes two main approaches to track the virus in the population, looking for both current and past infection.
- Antigen (swab) testing. Each month 150,000 people are sent a nose/throat swab.
- Antibody (lateral flow). Roughly 100,000 every 6 weeks are sent a finger prick antibody testing kit.
New Zealand is way behind in providing options due to Ardern’s intransigence. Ardern unashamedly gave millions of taxpayer dollars to gangs and funded a slow train service from Hamilton to Auckland. The train runs at a loss of $24,000 a day yet Ardern is close-fisted when there is an opportunity to deal efficiently with the COVID-19 threat to ordinary New Zealanders.
It is important to note that the UK tests were made available at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Even a courier was arranged to collect samples from homes and return them to a laboratory for analysis.
Ardern has had 18 months to manage this pandemic. A speedy test would be valuable in the current outbreak of the delta coronavirus; however, providing workable procedures where Kiwis can get a test expeditiously and allowing approved medications and tests into the country seem to be low priorities to her.
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