New scheme to keep key sectors going through Omicron

Te Whanganui-a-Tara - A new close contact exemption scheme will help keep critical supply chains running though Omicron, according to the government.

New Zealand has seen overseas that a combination of high rates of Omicron alongside isolation periods for contacts has put severe strain on supply chains and the provision of important services.

The scheme will be supported by rapid antigen tests supplied either directly by the business or service, or through the health system. 

From today, businesses and organisations can register online as a critical service if they think they will meet the criteria when Aotearoa enters phase two. Registration includes a declaration and will be able to be checked.

Critical services include food production and its supply chain, key public services like health and emergency services, lifeline utilities such as power and water supplies, transport, critical financial services, news media and social welfare. It also includes human and animal health and welfare.

It is up to businesses to self-assess and decide if they want to participate in the scheme. In doing so there needs to be an awareness that bringing close contacts into the workplace will come with risks.

While the new scheme will help businesses continue to operate, rapid antigen testing is about 80 per cent accurate. This may mean they have someone onsite who has covid and could infect other workers, which could further compromise business operations.

Any workers identified for the scheme will need to be vaccinated. If at any point they return a positive test, they will need to take a PCR test and isolate.

Those businesses that decide to register will be issued with a letter that, when New Zealand shifts to phase two of the Omicron response, will enable eligible workers to either use rapid antigen tests that their employers may hold, or collect rapid antigen tests from a collection site.

Isolation is the best way to stop the chain of transmission so businesses and workers involved in the scheme will need to continue to play their part in reducing the spread of the virus by complying with daily symptom checks.

That means for instance farmers, or sole traders including plumbers and residential builders, who operate out of their own space and work alone can continue to do that as long as they are vaccinated, don’t have symptoms and don’t have contact with anyone else.