Vaccines are available to anyone over the age of 12 who wants it in the New Zealand and soon available for those 5-12 years old along with booster shots for those who were vaccinated 6 months or longer ago. So why should we consider, call for and use COVID testing?

As the sole screening mechanism for COVID in real-time population management, PCR testing is not enough. Rapid antigen testing plays an integral, complementary role to PCR confirmatory testing. Regular testing with rapid results, multiple times a week, can greatly help prevent and control COVID outbreaks and avoid costly lockdowns and quarantines.

What a rapid antigen test does is identify antigens in a human sample by flowing that sample over a set of molecules that serve as probes because they can bind to the antigen of interest–if it’s in the sample.