“In its current form, that we use for Covid, the test been used routinely for about 20 years, before any of the denialists had heard of PCR,” Mr Mackay said.
“When Covid came out this form of PCR testing had already been used to test for the sexually transmitted infections chlamydia and gonorrhoea as well as testing for whether someone has been cured of hepatitis C.
“It's the exact same technology that's used to test for Covid.”
PCR had also been used for many years to test for other viruses, and even the industry test for the kiwifruit disease Psa.
The company also uses the same technology to test for fatal bee diseases.
“We'd rather not be putting out Covid kits but it was reported last year that New Zealand was going to run out of PCR testing kits and we thought ‘not while we're around' so we developed our own test method that's being used in hospitals around the country,” Mr Mackay said.
Belinda Mackay said the impact of misinformation here was “huge”.
“There's a real hesitancy around the mRNA vaccine in that people believe that this is a really new technology.
“It's been an overnight success 30 years in the making,” she said.
“The vaccine cannot alter our DNA, it is destroyed within 24 hours and contains far less foreign viral material than “traditional” vaccines which have used whole inactivated viruses.
“It's not experimental, has passed all its clinical trials required prior to roll-out.
“The thing that scares us is we know Māori are twice as likely to be admitted to hospital with the effects of infectious respiratory diseases and that was research that was done before Covid was known.
“When Covid gets here, it's going to be potentially bad news because it will target anyone that isn't vaccinated and with 3 ICU beds at the hospital, dedicated to Covid, our health system could be overrun pretty quickly”.
Council meeting adjourned after resident refuses to stop anti-vaccination tirade.
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