Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Research, Science and Innovation): As we enter a new phase of our COVID-19 response, with more and more New Zealanders gaining protection through vaccination, we can expand the tools we use to combat the virus. Last week, the Government gave the green light to importation of 300,000 approved rapid antigen tests, that will be used by some of the country's biggest employers. These tests can provide a result within around 15 minutes and will be used for workforce surveillance testing. However, they do tend to be less sensitive at detecting cases, so polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests will remain the mainstay of our COVID-19 testing in most situations.