In February 2021, Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, said "Of all the different testing models, antigen testing seems to be the least reliable.", and that he was not contemplating using rapid antigen tests (RATs) in Aotearoa. This statement was made while RATs were being deployed in the United Kingdom, throughout the United States and Canada, and some Australian states. Our Māori experts knew that RATs would be a useful screening tool as a first line of defence. Six months after—September 2021—still Bloomfield had denounced RATs, although with 100,000 RATs being purchased and later deployed at Middlemore to take the weight off overwhelmed services, indeed, in the middle of Delta. That same month, saliva testing was made available for Whānau Ora, in partnership with Rako Science. The cost of saliva tests is lower than nasal swabbing. In the middle of regional spread, Taranaki iwi also got into a similar partnership, as did Tupoho iwi in W'anganui.