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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-10-28 Daily Xml
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COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Testing

The Hon. C. BONAROS (14:49): I have a supplementary: the minister says that these tests are significantly less—

The PRESIDENT: A question, please.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: I am getting there.

The PRESIDENT: You need to ask a question or I will sit you down.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: Can you quantify ‘significantly less’?

The PRESIDENT: Thank you.

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:50): I will certainly take that on notice, but let's say it was 10 per cent. I think it might be in that sort of order. We are not talking about tests that have no clinical value. But in a situation where every single case counts—and that's the situation we are in at the moment—when we are in a situation where every single case counts then we need to absolutely minimise unreliable tests.

We've got the capacity to do significantly more PCR tests, so why would we increase the risk at the very cusp of reopening our borders and easing restrictions? Let's think about that. I couldn't quantify this for you but my impression is that, about four weeks ago, we had two weeks where we had a positive truck driver every second day. Around that time, we were introducing mandatory vaccinations for truck drivers and we also added rapid antigen testing to the PCR testing.

So we weren't saying we were going to rely on rapid antigen testing for this risky cohort, but what we did say is we are going to take the benefit of rapid antigen testing to give us early advice as to whether or not this person might be positive. They would continue to be subject to all of the public health requirements while we were waiting for the PCR to come back.

My recollection is that about two weeks ago we had about two weeks where every second day we had a positive truck driver. In the two weeks since, my recollection is we haven't had a positive truck driver. Again, as I confessed to the house yesterday, I am not a scientist, but at least circumstantially that might suggest that our testing regime for truck drivers, the imposition of mandatory vaccination, might well be having an impact.

Those initiatives are so crucial at this stage. We are just two days short of the one month before we reopen the borders and ease restrictions. This is a high-risk period. If we were to have an outbreak now, we would not have the level of vaccination that the public health teams believe is appropriate for borders reopening and easing restrictions, and we may well be faced with an outbreak, as three jurisdictions have to our east.

I do want to stress both to the Hon. Frank Pangallo and to the Hon. Connie Bonaros that SA Health is not ruling out rapid antigen testing. We are already using it in the context of truck drivers. There are other contexts in which it may well be used within the South Australian context, but it's SA Health's view that it is best deployed by SA Health for targeted relevant situations, and retail purchasing and use of rapid antigen testing is not one of those targeted situations.

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