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Community Covid testing centres in Auckland will begin giving some people rapid antigen tests (RATs) from today.
It is hoped the move will ease pressure on PCR testing and prioritise those most in need.
Each clinic will decide whether someone needing a Covid-19 test gets a RAT, which is faster but less reliable, or a PCR.
They will look at the reason for getting tested, including whether the person has symptoms or is a close contact.
Lemalu Silao Vaisola-Sefo runs the Ōtara community Covid testing centre.
He said the facility has more staff coming on board to manage the RATs, and will have a separate drive-through lane.
"We've got an average of about 1000 tests that's being done through the Ōtara testing station a day since last week and that number will only increase, so having the RATs hopefully alleviates the pressure that's being put on our testing station."
Apex Union's president for medical laboratory workers, Bryan Raill, said the move will help lab staff, who are already under the pump.
He said they are having to analyse many more individual tests because so many batches are revealing positive cases which have to be identified.
He said it is a way for testing centres to triage before tests get to the lab.
"Someone that may be able to test themselves at home to get an indication of whether they've got Covid or not, can go off with their RAT test, do that, if their RAT comes back positive then they can return and get a PCR done."
Medical Laboratory Science Institute president Terry Taylor said PCR testing is almost at capacity, especially in Auckland and anything that takes the pressure off lab services should be applauded.
He said rapid antigen tests are best when there are large numbers of Covid cases in the community.
"That's actually when rapid antigen testing comes into its own a little bit to help support the rest of the service and we're going to be starting to look after our most vulnerable, the ones that really need to be tested, the ones that we need to know that they've got Covid so that we can actually manage them within our hospitals."
The Ministry of Health says while the current rollout is only to Community Testing Centres, it will be expanded to Auckland GPs over the week.
Dr John Cameron is a GP in Westmere and agrees that now is a good time to be moving towards RATs because of the high number of cases.
He said in the two years before last Monday, his practice only had one positive Covid test, but in the last week, it has had 16.
Dr Cameron said a RAT will take about five to 10 minutes to get a result, and will speed up testing significantly so long as the criteria around who gets them is strict.
"People who've got symptoms of Covid-19, people who've been directed from a public health unit to have testing for household contacts and potential close contacts as well. So you need to keep your testing type, not just everybody."
The Ministry of Health says it will provide an update on the RAT rollout to other parts of the country later this week.
