First we should widen our definition of border workers to include those people who work one step removed from the border, such as the mother in this community case, whose work involved doing laundry for international flights. Second, we should be testing this expanded pool of “border workers” more frequently. We currently test border workers weekly but we should follow the example of Australia and institute daily saliva testing of all border workers. Saliva testing is less accurate than the standard weekly tests but having seven saliva tests for every standard test surely means we get some useful information much earlier. So yes, we should redouble our own efforts at prevention: hand-washing, mask-wearing, and location scanning but also recognise that efforts to keep the border secure are paramount.

Source: Stuff February 15, 2021 15:56 UTC