Fa’afetai Tele Lava And Thank You To Our Communities For A Record-breaking Week Of COVID-19 Swabbing

Tāmaki Makaurau health authorities want to thank our communities for turning out in record-breaking numbers to get a COVID-19 test during the last week.

Since the move to Alert Level 4 last Wednesday (18 August), more than 150,000 community tests have been registered by the city’s laboratories, making it metro Auckland’s biggest week ever for testing.

Of these, almost 28,000 of tests, or 20% of all tests, have been taken by our communities who identify as one of eight Pacific ethnicities. This is the highest rate of testing per population of any group.

Northern Region Health Coordination Centre Lead (and Counties Manukau Health CEO) Margie Apa says our Pacific communities always respond in high numbers to get tested when we have a community case in Auckland.

“On behalf of the whole health sector I want to say thank you to all Pacific peoples for once again turning out in huge numbers to get a COVID-19 test. We appreciate what it means to move around in level 4 and the significant contribution you are making to the national COVID-19 response.”

Auckland health authorities also want to thank the support we’ve received from our Pacific church leaders in South Auckland, in helping to boost testing numbers in their communities. In partnership with church leaders, we are opening a new Restricted Access Testing Centre in Māngere tomorrow.

This is a dedicated testing centre for the church community only and not available for the general public. This is to ensure the community can be tested in a place close to where they live and the processing of these tests can be prioritised.

The NRHCC also want to acknowledge the incredible hard work of our healthcare workers, in public health and primary care, in hospitals, laboratories and at community testing centres (CTCs), and elsewhere in our city. Without their continued effort we wouldn’t have been able to reach a record-breaking number of swabs taken and processed in a week.

In the last week, approximately 60% of COVID-19 tests were taken in Primary Care and 40% at community testing centres.

Auckland health authorities condemn racist attacks

The NRHCC is deeply concerned and disappointed by the racist messages received by members of our Pacific community on social media in recent days.

“Our Pacific community is doing the right thing by getting tested and heeding the call to stay at home. We will not tolerate messages of hate at this time and ask anyone receiving these messages to please report it,” says Ms Apa.

“As the Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said today, this behaviour is gutless and disappointing.”

We encourage anyone receiving messages of race-based hate to report it on the Netsafe website.

Testing update

In response to huge demand for testing, we have significantly boosted testing capacity across the region and opened new CTCs throughout the week.

As at 2pm today, the majority of our CTCs had no wait times or wait times of 15 minutes or less.

There are currently 22 community testing centresavailable for testing across Auckland, this includes 4 restricted access testing centres that are by invitation-only for high-risk groups and to prioritise essential health care workers, 6 regular community testing centres and 12 pop-up testing centres.

Anyone wanting a test can also call ahead to their GP, a designated practice or urgent care clinic to arrange a free test.

We need to look after our healthcare workers in Primary Care so they can be there to look after you. If you’re seeking care or a COVID-19 test at a general practice or urgent care clinic, you’ll be asked about your symptoms and whether you have had a risk of exposure to COVID-19. Please tell the truth - you will get the care you need no matter how you answer.

To make sure they keep everyone safe, your healthcare provider may need additional precautions to see you safely or you may be offered virtual care (or a phone or video consultation).

It’s essential that people only get tested if they are a contact, have visited a location of interest at the specific dates and times and have been told they need to get tested, or have cold and flu symptoms.

Please be patient when waiting back for your test results. We are experiencing delays in laboratory testing because of the unprecedented number of tests being processed.

For up-to-date information on testing locations in Auckland, visit www.arphs.health.nz/covid19test. For up-to-date info on all testing locations, visit www.healthpoint.co.nz/covid-19/

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