Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister for COVID-19 Response): The Government has launched an additional targeted rural service of rapid antigen tests (RATs) for those who live in remote rural areas. Now that the purpose of testing has shifted away from finding every case, RATs provide intelligence on the spread and size of the outbreak, alert people to the support available to them, and help bring a sense of normality to people's lives. More than 95 percent of New Zealanders are within a 20-minute drive of a RAT access point, but we need to make sure that the 250,000 who live remotely are also able to access testing easily. 