Judith Collins is now promising to increase our border security by not allowing any visitors/citizens into NZ without a negative Covid test, but we are not confident that the single PCR (swab test) is the most accurate test to use for our health and safety, as the PCR test has been with 20% false negative and this fails “the gold standard”.

CEAC challenges National by requesting they also use the new gold standard requesting a “Serology Antibody Covid 19 To Gold Standard” as it has a 99.8% accuracy. The current PCR (Swab test) is far less accurate. See the Roche company press release when accepted by the FDA. (see below, along with our last press release sent to you on this subject.)

https://www.roche.com/media/releases/med-cor-2020-05-03.htm

Roche’s COVID-19 antibody test receives FDA Emergency Use Authorization and is available in markets accepting the CE mark

· The serology test has a specificity greater than 99.8% and sensitivity of 100% (14 Days post-PCR confirmation)

· The high specificity of the test is crucial to determine reliably if a person has been exposed to the virus and if the patient has developed antibodies

· Roche will provide high double-digit millions of tests already in May for countries accepting the CE mark and in the U.S. under Emergency Use Authorization, further ramping up capacities thereafter

· The test is available on Roche’s cobas e analysers which are widely available around the world

Basel, 03 May 2020 - Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA)1 for its new Elecsys® Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test. The test is designed to help determine if a patient has been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and if the patient has developed antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Roche has already started shipping the new antibody test to leading laboratories globally and will ramp up production capacity to high double-digit millions per month to serve healthcare systems in countries accepting the CE mark2 as well as the U.S.

“Thanks to the enormous efforts of our dedicated colleagues we are now able to deliver a high-quality antibody test in high quantities, so we can support healthcare systems around the world with an important tool to better manage the COVID-19 health crisis,” said Severin Schwan, CEO Roche Group. ”I am in particular pleased about the high specificity and sensitivity of our test, which is crucial to support health care systems around the world with a reliable tool to better manage the COVID-19 health crisis.”

“Our best scientists have worked 24/7 over the last few weeks and months to develop a highly reliable antibody test to help fight this pandemic,” said Thomas Schinecker, CEO Roche Diagnostics. “Roche is committed to helping laboratories deliver fast, accurate, and reliable results to healthcare professionals and their patients.”

Roche’s SARS-CoV2 antibody test, which has a specificity greater than 99.8% and 100% sensitivity3 (14 Days post-PCR confirmation), can help assess patients’ immune response to the virus. As more is understood about immunity to SARS-CoV-2, the test may help to assess who has built up immunity to the virus.

CEAC - Response.

TVNZ Q+A Professor Blakely stated clearly that all who are in contact with our borders, including the Ports must be tested fully for present infections with the PCR (swab test) and if the infection was over two weeks ago, he recommends testing with the serology antibody test for finding any past infections after two weeks.

Dr Blakely reminded Jack Tame that the PCR (Swab test) was not “perfect” and 20% failed to be accurate, showing false negative results after two weeks out from infection. This was Dr Blakely’s reason for recommending the serology antibody test as well was to have complete accurate results.

Ministry of Health clearly should be doing this now or we risk the case that we do not have adequate data to understand ‘how and why’ the latest community Covid cluster has emerged this week, so they are concentrating at the cold store site where containers are transported by trucks, CEAC assume all drivers are tested, - If not we must now test all our freight transport drivers and incorporate this with the current ‘swab test’- and “the antibody test (also called a serology test.) which confirm all who develop immunity to Covid 19 for true accurate test results.

Be cautious Government.

Government must require that a full Covid 19 testing of all visitors/citizens complete a full negative test assessment of any presence of Covid 19 infections using both the PCR (swab test) and the serology antibody test at least 48hrs before arriving at NZ’s border.

We must have mass testing of all our community firstly then use a solid controlled ‘tracing of the Covid 19’ to have a ‘robust tracing process’ to fight Covid 19.

Do this right. - We are all in this together.

© Scoop Media