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David Seymour
ACT Leader
The Government needs to tell us what it did to prepare for a Delta outbreak, so there is hope of ending this lockdown in days not weeks.
At the Health Committee two weeks ago, Chris Hipkins could not give one example of what the Government has done in response to the emergence of Delta.
Any COVID response consists of testing, tracing, and vaccinating, all of them are in trouble made worse by Delta.
The opportunity to put in place saliva testing is nearing its first birthday, but Chris Hipkins recently told Parliament the astonishing news that only 15 people were saliva tested in the previous month.
Can the Government tell us that contact tracing has improved to the point they can quickly trace to the end of chains of transmission? In Parliament two weeks ago Chris Hipkins was quite candid about the fact that Delta would quickly outrun contact tracing, at what alert levels is that the case?
If the Government cannot trace this outbreak, then we have to assume it’s everywhere and the only way to maintain elimination under Delta is to lockdown long enough for it to die out while everyone is isolated.
Our vaccination rates are woeful. And stopping vaccination in the midst of an outbreak is a nonsensical decision.
One of ACT’s MPs visited a prison yesterday where the vaccination rate was 71 per cent. It seems you need to break the law to get a vaccination in this country.
Meanwhile, law-abiding citizens booked to be vaccinated today after waiting weeks have had appointments cancelled and it’s not obvious when they’ll get new appointments.
We need a better plan than quarantining the entire country.
The Government has questions to answer today, and ACT will continue pushing for those answers.
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