21 Jul 2020

Covid-19: Eight tests in the community on Sunday

From Morning Report, 7:38 am on 21 July 2020

Public health experts are concerned about the extremely low rate of community testing.

On Sunday 681 tests were processed, the vast majority of them, 673, were from swabs taken from people in managed isolation. Meaning just eight came from the wider community.

The Minister of Health Chris Hipkins has said he wants 4000 tests a day to make sure the disease is not spreading outside of managed isolation.

Professor Michael Baker is an epidemiologist from the University of Otago.