Dr Siouxsie Wiles answers all your questions on finding a cure. Video / Aotearoa Science Agency
New data shows marked differences in the proportion of people being tested across the regions, with Canterbury testing at about half the rate of Auckland.
The information, released yesterday by the Ministry of Health, breaks down testing for the 21 District Health Boards.
Canterbury DHB has tested 5.4 people per 1000 compared to 9.6 for the Auckland DHB.
The DHBs serve similar populations. Auckland has 159 confirmed or probable Covid-19 cases compared to 119 in Canterbury, according to latest figures.
Wairarapa DHB, which has eight cases of Covid-19, has the highest testing rate with 16.3 tested per 1000 population.
Waikato and Southern have the highest rates of testing among the biggest DHBs with 10.9 and 10.3 people tested per 1000 population respectively.
Southern DHB has the highest number of confirmed and probable cases with 200.
Tests
A wedding reception in Bluff is the biggest cluster in the country, with 87 cases. Those cases are spread around the country, particularly in Waikato and Wellington.
Publication of testing data by region and by ethnic groups comes as the number of new cases reported declines.
Otago University epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker has previously been reluctant to get too "comfortable" about the declining number of new cases until testing data was more comprehensive and made public.
Baker said there didn't appear to be any obvious data gaps.
"It's reassuring to see we have testing distributed across the whole country, at least at the DHB level."
He said too much should not be read into Canterbury's rate.
More finely-grained data was needed in order to know whether all areas, particularly those with a lot of tourists, were adequately covered.
Anne Guenole, 73, who died after she was admitted to Grey Base Hospital in Greymouth, remains New Zealand's only Covid-19 death.
Otago University Professor Michael Baker (left) says the volume of testing is looking very good. Photo / Supplied
"I have never seen an explanation of how she got infected," Baker said. "So the message is with this virus you have to have very good granular data to say that the risk is low in a community.
"It's very hard to say there is no risk. But if you are testing large numbers of people with mild illness and you are not seeing [Covid-19] that gives you a lot more confidence."
The large numbers of tourists here in January and early February meant we had to be vigilant to ensure there weren't unnoticed chains of transmission, Baker said.
He said the system of testing now appeared robust.
"We are going in the right direction. The volumes of testing are looking very good. It is the fine-tuning [that needs to be done]."
He said he would like to see data that showed how much testing was being done in tourists hotspots such as Queenstown.
"The basic message is the Ministry of Health is very aware of what we need to achieve here. It is just an operational challenge to get it all working."
