Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Small COVID-19 leaks from quarantine can have dire population-wide effects. Just look at Victoria's recent two-week lockdown following a single case escaping from quarantine. If we want to make our quarantine system safer and avoid further outbreaks, building more facilities like Howard Springs is not the answer. Daily rapid antigen tests could give us the security we need. Rapid antigen tests use a test strip, like a pregnancy strip, that reacts to the presence of viral proteins in a sample swabbed from the nose. Results are available in minutes, not hours, as occurs with the gold-standard lab testing currently used for screening asymptomatic workers.

Slower PCR test results mean quarantine staff and people being discharged from quarantine may mingle in the community for hours before they know they are infectious. If staff or those leaving quarantine are moving around the community unaware that they are COVID-19-positive, this can result in catastrophic outcomes, such as community outbreaks. The almost immediate results of rapid antigen tests are attractive, given the emergence of new, highly infectious variants of concern, where it can be difficult for contact tracing to keep up with the speed of spread. Britain is already offering free rapid antigen testing to all citizens twice weekly. It is used for asymptomatic screening, followed up by gold-standard confirmation with lab testing. As we emerge from COVID, we need to look at alternative ways to quickly identify outbreaks. (Time expired)