So with the changes to the Covid Protection Framework regarding what counts as an acceptable face covering for each situation I have a question:
For those that work with workers that are in a vaccine mandated group and are required to wear a "medical-grade face covering", do the masks you have provided your workers meet one of the below standards / criteria (the standards that are listed in the amended Order)?

• BS EN 14683:2019 - Type IIR
• ASTM F2100-21 - Level 2
• AS 4381:2015 - Surprise! The amendment doesn't state which criteria it must pass (but compared to the above I would assume they meant to say Level 2 Barrier)

Also it is interesting that none of the suggested masks on the MoH guidance for Infection prevention and control recommendations for health and disability care workers webpage seem to have an official certification to any of the standards above (although I would expect that they would likely pass, and the given the wording in the Order technically the masks don't actually have to be certified but just have to be able to pass if they were tested).

At the moment, bringing unapproved RATs in, would likely see them sized by NZ Customs. — Steve H

I would expect this too - given that they are a medical device my understanding is you need to be licensed to import them, except when exempted by specific legislation - such as the RAT order allowing any business (or other approved entity) to directly import the RAT from the approved list.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/government-should-prove-it-is-telling-the-truth-about-rapid-antigen-test-supplies-says-testing-provider/YWFFY232J7XIC3RPWJIY5Y3J5U/ — TracyRichardson

So semantics! Any stock business do have aren't being taken off them, but they can't purchase any more.

As an example of how the Government "only consolidating" stock is in practice essentially the same as the Government requisitioning all RATs in NZ - I just heard from a company that I work with that they only have enough stock to test all of their employees 3 times - so essentially 1 week's worth of stock if testing at the rate recommended by the MoH. So rather than using RAT as surveillance testing how the MoH has recommended for business that choose to do so, they are now having to look at the most effective way to use their remaining stock (only testing "high risk" people such as those that frequently visit multiple sites).

When will the spin stop!

but the MoH website contradicts this stating ‘…Businesses that use rapid antigen tests above and beyond the requirements of mandatory testing must pay for tests themselves…’. — TracyRichardson

Further confused by the details on the MoH's RAT advice page that

RATs are not mandatory and won’t be suitable for everyone. It is up to businesses to choose whether they want to use RATs. — MoH

Given these masks need to be fit tested to get to the maximum level of protection, is that going to happen Sheri? — Steve H

Let's go back to the beards and respirator thread! ;)

Duke University study which was published in September 2020, says that correctly fitted N95 masks that cover the full face are the most effective at preventing particle transfer.

My understanding was the Duke study related to evaluating a simple / cost effective mask testing method rather than specifically the effectiveness of the masks used? While the data on "mask effectiveness" produced during the research is interesting and a possible insight into mask effectiveness, as it wasn't the focus of the study it should be taken with a grain of salt.

Also while the N95 was "the best", a blue surgical mask was actually pretty close to it. And most other fabric style face masks significantly reduced the detected respirable droplets (<20% of no mask).
Also to note is that the results provided in the paper (figures below) were based on just a single person using each mask type (except for the hollow circles are an average across 4 people) - so not a sample size that you should draw any specific conclusions from.


A surprising result to me was where the valved N95 sat in the data, around the same reduction as most of the cotton masks.

But again the purpose of the study wasn't to evaluate masks, it was to evelaute the testing method. The paper's discussion is 100% focused on how the testing method could be improved, and doesn't even mention the eveluation of mask effectvieness at all (except to caution that the results should only serve as a demostration of the testing only). Link to the paper

My take-away - use face coverings, use the most effective masks available to you that is comfortable enough to allow you to wear it correctly while wearing it. There is no point wearing an N95 if you are going to be constantly taking it on/off to get "fresh air" or end up with it sitting under your nose because you can't breath.

Well if looking at it from a HSWA viewpoint - you're looking to manage the risk "so far as reasonably practicable", with the current options of:
1. Supply masks that are 90% effective, or
2. Don't supply masks as there aren't enough supply of N95 masks available (and everyone continue with whatever they have now).

Seems like your plan would fit into "reasonably practicable".

I'm interested in the advice to move away from just face covering to respirator (as that is technically what an N95 mask is). My understanding is the main aim for the face covering rules were to reduce the spread of the respirable/aerosol droplets carrying virus from an contagious (but not yet symptomatic) person rather that Personal protection. Anyone got the scientific research backing up the changes in the guidance?

Thanks @Jo Prigmore - interesting information. A real positive that both yours and the pharmacy testing results are an order of magnitude less for the false positives rate than the MoH guidance, which will mean much less of a disruption to operations.

We've administered just over 6000 RATs now within our business. — Jo Prigmore

Any chance you have kept a record of how many false positives have you had so far @Jo Prigmore?

For a while it was a bit confusing as different MOH advice seemed to contradict itself. — Chris Anderson

For a while... to me there still is a a lot of confusion within the MoH! Just look at the various (changing) definitions of a Casual Plus Contact!
All good - deleted my post (as best I could) to avoid any confusion in the thread.
Cheers @Chris Anderson!

I deleted this post as it was in reply to part of @Chris Anderson's post that was revised and removed... but to save it being just a blank post I thought I post this relevant video regarding RAT
Why LESS Sensitive Tests Might Be Better
Really important are the caveats at the end - that RAT is only one part of the puzzle, and that it shouldn't be considered as an straight alternative to PCR testing or even vaccinations and basic hygiene practices (cleaning, sanitising, mask wearing, etc.).

One possibility I would look into, since Vault is very customisable for what each type of user can see/access, is to check that the risk management module is not unselected in the user access profiles being assigned to your users.

To answer the question of "do you use it" - so far out of nearly a dozen companies that use Vault I have only seen one that has used the risk registers in any productive way.

do you have any insight into the frequency of false-positives for your use of RAT? Or for those that participated in the pilot for RAT in the construction industry last year?

MoH guidance indicates the likelihood of false positives as 4 in every 1000 tests, which is pretty high and could potentially cause not insignificant logistic issues where untargeted (wide/frequent) RAT for general surveillance is used. Most studies I have read have results with specificities in the 99.X% vicinity which is in line with the 4 in a 1000 advice from MoH.

I'm very interested to hear of any data from real world RAT programs to see if the lab results match up with reality or not.

The hazards of Harry Potter — Terri Coopland

"Not slip-n-wrythe, not slip-n-wrythe, not slip-n-wrythe..."
"Ok then... Trip-n-fall!!!"

1. I am not aware of any instance where a supplier has been instructed to become a 'Supplier with Supply Chain' member of Tōtika, nor would Tōtika support such an approach. Every business signed up to receive the supplier listing service directly from Tōtika have done so as a matter of choice and that will continue to be the case. Since we moved away from taking credit card payments, I now personally speak to every single applicant for buyer access to make sure they need it before they receive an invoice. Tōtika has turned many more suppliers towards the free registration than they have accepted for the payed one.

2. In the aforementioned case the supplier is moving away from an expensive international supplier that the client has stopped using (as that client has moved to Tōtika). Without Tōtika, that client would have very likely continued with the expensive international supplier. Whatever costs are associated with that suppliers choices for PQ in the future, Tōtika will not see $1 of it and the supplier will not have to pay more than $1500 for an assessment if they use a Tōtika member scheme (it's very likely they will pay much less. They stated they were paying $4k to the big expensive PQ supplier, which means they are a relatively small company or they would have been paying much more). — Jon Harper-Slade

Yeah I was assuming a bit in that first paragraph (sorry), and probably worded it wrong (especially after your clarification that it would actually be specifically yourself giving any sort of advice on which way to go) - so possibly read that from more of a perspective of "from what I read on the website, this is what it'll cost me", rather than "Totika told me this is what it will cost me" - and fair call on the fact it would be a reduction in total cost anyway even if it is an additional cost to engage a new PQ supplier.
I still would however be cautions with the use of "it's free to register with Totika" as even though it is technically correct, there is some implication of no cost - compare it with "there is no additional cost to register with Totika" which implies that there are costs (as you have outlined) but those costs are outside of the actual Totika framework. The analogy of a sign outside of a foodcourt saying "It's free to dine in this foodcourt" - some may interpret that as they are going to get free food; while most would consider that while they won't have to pay to enter the foodcourt it is reasonable to expect that they pay whichever food vendor they decide to purchase food from for that food.

Interesting to understand a little more on the direction of Totika, sounds like it may be close to the Yelp/Finda for Contractors I mentioned earlier (without the issue of fake reviews) ;)
One additional thought to ponder over - while we may be able to better identify "good" / "safe" contractors early with pre-qulaification systems, will any of it actually be of use? In NZ we generally have a small pool of contractors that are suitable for specific contract works - a large scale commercial building project - you have a handful of main contractors to choose from, regional roading project - handful of contractors, national roading project - looking at joint ventures or international suppliers, small / medium industrial or building capital works - handful of local mech/elec/civil/etc. contractors... my point being is generally in NZ we already know who is available to complete our work before the scope is even written up, we have already used them multiple times before and have relationships with them (including knowing what to watch out for). In other words - how often do we engage a contractor that we have no knowledge about prior to going into it?

I kind of get where Yonny is coming from though Jon - and this is his experience with dealing with Totika.
Yes a lot of contractors will not be out of pocket (and in fact a lot will save money) with Totika, as they are likely to already be pre-qualified at the appropriate level with one of the participating schemes.
However in Yonny's case it seems like they would also have to switch pre-qual providers (and I am assuming they are a large company) so $1200-$1500, plus if they engage subcontractors themselves it is likely they would have been instructed to sign up as a "Suppliers with own Supply Chain" at a cost of $1000 for the "buyer" functionality of Totika - so all up they are looking at a cost of over $2000 (although only a portion would go to Totika).

As you say though, this is only the starting iteration of the process for improvement in this space, although to be honest there are much bigger issues with NZ's accepted procurement practices - just take NZTA Board Chairman's public statement of the extreme disappointment in the delays to opening Transmission Gulley despite NZTA making their expectations clear and pushing very hard for it to open, their is not even the slightest bit of consideration of the contractor's point of view from the NZTA Board - how can we get anywhere to improve all project outcomes if we still have leading organisations run by boards or management teams without a mindset of collaboration with all involved in projects to best manage the risks (not just safety) between those involved rather than lumping the risk onto the contractor and demanding that things don't change from the idealised concept that was first scribbled down 5+ years ago? To be honest a lot of this probably also goes back to how public money is allocated, spent and justified...in other words the Government can't be seen wasting money, so we just make out that it is just the contractor to blame (and is there anything we learn anything from the current hot topic that "you can either blame or learn, but you can't do both").

And that is my main point... contractor prequalification was never really the problem, how many convictions have there been of a Principle Contractor failing to Pre-Qualify their subcontractors? I am going to bet on 0 - there are plenty of cases where their failure was to consult, or co-ordinate, or co-operate with their subcontractors to manage risks, but there will be none in which a judge has effectively said "you are being convicted because you did not ask for your subcontractors safety information before you asked them to give you a quote" and definitely none where the defense of "but I prequalified them so I'm not responsible" actually worked.
"Blanket" Contractor Prequalification (as is the current norm either in house or by 3rd party) has effectively been a parasitic solution that never really had a problem to solve, except for providing a false sense of security to senior management and Boards that they were actually managing the "sub-contractor" safety risk. In other words - it was always implied as solving your "sub-contractor management" risks so you had your ass covered when a sub-contractor seriously hurt or killed someone. Evidence of this is how often in the tendering process it is accepted that a supplier's quote will be accepted on the prevision that they will achieve the requirements of any "safety pre-qualification" clause before the contract is signed (or even better, before work is to start on site). This is the point of the OP that started this discussion in the first place.

I do question though if an iterative response is best in this case - or do we simply accept that the current state of pre-qual is at least something, while working to provide better industry specific procurement guidelines and guidance (including safety) - WorkSafe NZ and NZ Government H&S Lead do provide some general guidelines, and interestingly neither of these advocate for "blanket" pre-qualification as we have now but rather a project specific pre-qualification process as part of the tendering process which is proportional to the size and complexity of the project (so vague but this is where industry specific guidelines can step in to fill the gap of what "proportional" actually looks like).

But even this doesn't get down into the crux of it... which is that "safety" isn't an independent or static variable in the contract management space. There are a lot of different influences on safety both from within a contractor's own company and from outside of it, and these change throughout the lifecycle of a contract - depending on the circumstances an excellent "pre-qualified" contractor may resort to "less safe" practices when up against it (i.e. there's not enough trench shields available in the region so we're only using them on "high-risk" excavations because none of our clients can accept a delay to their project"). The improvements needed required us to understand this and accept that risks are best managed in collaboration with all project stakeholders not just lumped onto one of them, and that simply things do and will change from what was planned at the start of a project.

I guess my philosophical question to you regarding Totika and the OP is; do you see Totika as a stop-gap (to be disbanded when the actual issues are resolved), or do you see a future iteration of Totika's Pre-qualification as the end goal?

its more the "Association" enforcing guidelines, but I continue to try and influence our organisation to have faith in our risk assessment and enhanced protocols. — Steffan St Clair-Newman

Any chance your GMs or CEO/COO regularly meet the counterparts of the other association member companies? If you can get them to ask the question about struggling to deal with the association's mask requirements with their peers they may find that everyone is dealing with the same problem giving more weight behind the push to adapt the requirements, or alternatively maybe they find out a workable solution/alternative.

And there are new definitions or a Casual Plus Contact:

Casual Plus contacts are people who had close range contact with a case (refer to box on the left), but
because of consistent use of other public health measures, such as masks, they are at a lower risk of getting COVID-19, especially if they are vaccinated. — Chris Anderson

I know the excuse is that this is a "developing situation", but one of the main issues with how the NZ Goverment, Ministries and Goverment Agencies are managing Covid-19 is the complete inconsistencies with their approach and even terminology - especially problematic when it is within the same organisation. Case in point that the Ministry of Health has a completely different definition of "Casual Plus Contact" on the general contact tracing information page:

Casual Plus Contacts are unvaccinated people who have been in the same place at the same time, or near someone infectious with COVID-19. This will only be in some specific situations like at a school. — MoH

Similarly - why does the contact tracing guidelines for business not make even one reference to the QR Code system and Contact Tracing App, but does say that the business will have to provide an accurate record of all contacts through a excel worksheet - so if you have been diligently getting everyone coming onto your premises to scan your QR as the main method of keeping record then you in a bit of a tough spot and may be added to the list of "locations of interest" (with the weird threatening tone in the guidelines that this is a bad thing to happen).

No wonder NZ businesses (especially SMEs) are scratching their heads, confused as ever, and waiting for those that are running this show to actually figure it out for themselves.

We completed our risk assessment and the biggest risk for us is the use of masks due to constantly adjusting them due to the environmental conditions, having to replace masks often and therefore touching the masks with our hands etc, so for us it would make sense not to wear masks due to barriers, curtains, not face to face, etc...but we are forced by MPI and another association to follow the guidelines for mask use — Steffan St Clair-Newman

From what I can tell from the MPI guidelines, they are just that - guidelines. Your own risk assessment specific to your business and your operation should trump the guidelines (but it would be expected that the guidance provided has at least been considered). However I don't operate in the Primary Industries space so don't have first hand experience in how MPI are actually "enforcing" their guidelines.

The Ministry of Health has some good information too - https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-public/contact-tracing-covid-19

It is still expected that close contacts isolate for 7 days (or 10 if unvaccinated). Vaccinated casual contacts are only required to monitor for symptoms. So the key is minimising the actual close contact as far as possible - even splitting the work areas into work groups and staggering breaks, etc can be the difference between close and casual in a lot of cases (remembering hygiene practices between break shifts - last one out of smoko cleans and sanitizes).