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).

So did WorkSafe bring up the Vaseline comment in court? And did the judge consider it when determining the sentence?
Also if you have the research/studies that "Vaseline" does not provide an effective seal I would be keen to read them.

May be of interest as it's around lack of policy on RPE and wearing of beards with respirators and the old myth of Vaseline.
Pest control business fined $250K after workers poisoned
https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/12/09/pest-control-business-fined-250k-after-workers-poisoned/ — Derek Miller

(Repost from another thread refering to this sentencing)
Interesting, but the quotes are from WorkSafe NZ's Manager of Health, Health & Technical Services not the judge or prosecution (Scoop article). Given the number of other failings of the company I would be surprised if the prosecution got down to the detail of sealing masks with Vaseline in court - especially given there doesn't seem to be much actual research on the subject to scientifically conclude how effective Vaseline is to seal RPE with facial hair, or not, so it would most likely be seen more as a statement of opinion and a potential reasons for appeal if it had been considered when determining the sentence (I am assuming the company plead guilty).

Interesting wording on when testing is not free, sounds like a nightmare to navigate - is it free for a worker with a travel exemption flying out of Auckland (Vac or not), but not if they fly out from anywhere else in NZ if they are unvaccinated? And yeah I didn't consider international travel, that seems just as nightmarish to get people in and out of NZ at the moment.

Regarding that "98%" claim in the NY Times article that looks to be based on a study looking at PCR and lab-based antigen testing, not Rapid Antigen testing so I would take the 98% claim with a grain of salt. Although the articles do highlight the importance of anyone doing the testing to be properly trained to be most effective, those I know using RA testing as part of their Covid management have trained internal staff that will oversee the resting so that they have as much confidence as possible in the results. Especially since poor administration of the test could negate any benefits of a constant monitoring program (if you can't do it right the first time, it will be more likely that you don't do it right any other time.. so your always going to be in the group that is less accurate).

And don't forget that the RA tests are screening test - just like the ISO accredited drug test, which either return a negative or a non-negative which requires lab analysis to establish if and what drugs have actually been taken. Even a home pregnancy test (which is very similar to the Covid RA test in technology) are just screening tests that require a doctor's consult to confirm pregnancy.

In a business sense given the current very low infection rate in NZ unless we are pre-screening for individuals that have a higher likelihood for being infectious with Covid (e.g. showing Covid symptoms, or close/casual contacts, or traveling from a region with much higher infection rates) before using RA testing we are likely to create more problems that the actual risk we are trying to manage:

The benefits of rapid antigen screening are relative to the amount of disease that is present in a population (prevalence), with greater benefit from settings with high prevalence. At low levels of prevalence, the risk of having a false-positive test results will exceed the public health benefit. — MoH Interim Guidance Framework for the Provision of Rapid Antigen Screening for COVID-19 in Clinical and NonClinical Settings

My main point not to rush in and implement a RA testing program on the basis that "more testing is always better" - it is critical to consider how and when the RA tests will be used, especially what the response will be for a positive test. Will you treat it like a positive Covid case (e.g. isolation for the worker and all close contacts until confirmed by a PCR test) even though it is potentially more likely to be a false positive than an actual infection? Or do you risk potential close contacts continuing to work while waiting on confirmation of the RA test? This is a real business risk that needs to be considered - especially with the MoH advice that on average 4 out every 1000 tests is a false positive, since the more you test the more likely you will get a false positive. And assuming the MoH false positive rate is true and testing 120 workers every 3 days you should be expecting to deal with a positive test ever 1-2 weeks (that is much more likely to be a false positive than an actual case).

Men usually have had two options if they had problems keeping a seal on their mask due to facial hair. The first was to shave off the beard and/or moustache. The second was to just deal with water in the mask. But we have the answer for you.

This Silicone Mask Seal helps those with facial hair, such as moustaches and/or beards, achieve a great mask seal. — Steve H

Some evidence that it may work for RPE, but remember that water will behave differently than dusts and especially gases so not an 100% analogy.

@Chris Peace Maybe a good subject for a research project by one of your Masters students?

On the use of Vaseline, this from a WorkSafe prosecution just announced today: — Peter Bateman

Interesting, but the quotes are from WorkSafe NZ's Manager of Health, Health & Technical Services not the judge or prosecution (Scoop article). Given the number of other failings of the company I would be surprised if the prosecution got down to the detail of sealing masks with Vaseline in court - especially given there doesn't seem to be much actual research on the subject to scientifically conclude how effective Vaseline is to seal RPE with facial hair, or not, so it would most likely be seen more as a statement of opinion and a potential reasons for appeal if it had been considered when determining the sentence (I am assuming the company plead guilty).

One slight tweak to the poster... and hopefully subtle enough

↪MattD2 Correct. Someone was asked to make some bracket and put this on the wall. You need to unscrew the bracket to remove it. He did it for two different items. It would have been tricky to to do. — Michael Wilson

I nearly didn't mention that because it looked so perfectly done that I originally assumed it must have been intentional!

We are also stuck with paying for non vaccinated staff to do their non government funded tests ($160!) for their travel. Shame the RAT wouldn't help, as the result needs to come from a lab. — Yonny Yeung

I was under the impression that all PCR Covid testing was free of charge (link), are you paying $160 per test to a private lab to speed up the turnaround for the results or something else?

Also do you have a source for the accuracy rates that you have stated? I have seen information that the accuracy can vary widely depending on the manufacture of the test. And also how have you calcualted that the accuracy increases to 98% if you are testing all workers every 3 days?

Not a cheap exercise! — Yonny Yeung

If that's $20 per test, then that's costing over $200k per year to test all 120+ workers every 3 days! Given the concerns with the accuracy, false positives, etc. of the testing is that cost really worth it or could that money be better spent in preventative measures instead?

But, how often is it just a 'recruiting mistake'? — Aaron Marshall

Agree that the strawman I put up is an unlikely situation, but was just to illustrate the point the "blaming" (while the wrong word to describe it) may be valid in some situations and shouldn't prevent learning from occurring at the same time.

There are competing objectives that very rarely sit nicely together with education vs. prosecution... — Aaron Marshall

I agree, and a big part of the problem you highlight is when we (either a regulator or a business) try to do both at the same time.

I find that the issue is than when investigating events, risks, incidents the focus needs to move away from human error and go a bit more in-depth into organizational issues such as process, training methodology, risk assessments, incident investigations, management reviews, etc — TracyRichardson

I think it isn't exactly to move the focus away from human error, but to ensure that human error isn't the only focus. Otherwise we will still be missing a big piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding the work and what went wrong (or right) - we need to understand why someone made the mistake they made to understand and assess how the rest of the system parts worked together to result in the outcome that eventuated.

I'm usually really bad at these... all I can see is why'd they zip-tue the handle?
Or if they are just bracket to store the porta-power then one of them is on backwards...

Without reading the article yet... is it just semantics? Is it actually simply "you can learn or you can not learn". After all post-incident I can blame the worker for being an idiot and fire them, but still also learn from that and change how I go when I am hiring their replacement. This could be seen as blaming the worker, but also learning from one recruitment mistakes. Sometime we do end up with job-fit mismatches where the best outcome for all parties is the worker finds work more suited to their abilities and skills (best yet for the company to work with them to make that transition).

Really the situations where we are just blaming the workers for incidents are essentially just a justification to not have to learn. It isn't as simplistic as if you stop blaming you'll start learning, rather it is an active choice that must be made to want to change and improve systems. However this takes time and resources, which are usually in short supply especially after an incident, which goes to explaining why simply blaming the worker is often the choice of action. How can we change this...?

it seems the rapid antigen testing is most useful when someone is symptomatic in the workplace, and it could be asthma, allergies, a cold, etc or covid. The test will help to rule out covid and provide reassurance. (acknowledging that sick people need to stay home of course) — Jane

Yes this would be a good use case in my opinion - speaking from personal experience when instead of being booked in for a doctor's consult to get my yearly hay fever medication I was booked for a Covid test because I had a runny nose, sneezing and itchy eyes... you know typical hay fever symptoms which I had literally just told them! Although whilst frustrating I can't really fault them for the precaution.

Due to the current climate of having a shortage of skilled staff, this would result in a stand down for specific staff members. For small to medium business, this is not sustainable position, as many cannot afford to keep on staff that are not fulfilling their job description and doing the job they were hired for. — TracyRichardson

I am also seeing situations where we are somewhat playing chicken with determining how Covid risks will be managed in the long term, especially considering what part the vaccination plays in the wider scheme - to a point where effective planning is being sidelined until someone blinks and calls for the site to be "vaccination only" (even though both sides know that going vaccinated only is not really a viable option as it will have significant impacts on the sites being able to actually be staffed and operated).

In my mind (for whatever reason) some of the industry guidelines have been coopted as just another vehicle for the drive for increased vaccination rates rather than providing good industry specific guidelines for managing risks of an infectious disease in a workplace - specifically spending too much of their effort on justifying the implementation of a "vaccination only" policy rather than management of the risk of Covid spreading through their industry member's workplaces.

Regarding daily (or similar) RA testing - at the estimate low end of $10 per test and checking every day it is going to cost more than an additional $2,500 for testing each year per unvaccinated worker. But what is the effective risk reduction?

Some back of a napkin math...
Looking to other countries for an estimate on the average number of workers we should expect to become infected on any given day it would be reasonable to estimate <0.1% (USA - 0.032%, UK - 0.065%, Aus - 0.054%, Ireland - 0.093% - calculated from the rolling 7 day new cases)).
The US CDC are reporting that >80% new infections are in unvaccinated people (here)
RA test are expected to return a false positive for every 4 tests out of 1000 (MoH guide)
From the expected daily infection rate and the skew of infections being more in unvaccinated people we expect that (roughly) 0.08% of the unvaccinated workers will become infected in any given day, and likewise 0.02% of vaccinated workers. Lets assume a workplace with 100 workers and 90% vaccination rate, so we will have 90 vaccinated workers and 10 unvaccinated.

For the case where we are only testing unvaccinated workers - on average each day we would expect that:
0.008 (10 x 0.08%) will return a positive test because they are actually infected,
but 0.040 ((10 - 0.008) x 0.4%) will luck out and return a false positive,
with the remaining 9.952 returning negative results,
(and 90 workers not tested as they have been vaccinated).
But that doesn't make much intuitive sense so lets look at it from a perspective of how often should we expect a positive test on average. Which is we should expect a positive test approximately every 21 days (so roughly one per month), except that is any positive so includes the false positives too. We would expect an actual positive result from an infected worker only every 125 days (or roughly twice a year).

But now consider if we test everyone on site each day - this ends up with:
0.026 (10 x 0.08% + 90 x 0.02%) will return a positive test because they are actually infected,
but 0.400 ((100-0.026) x 0.4%) will luck out and return a false positive,
with the remaining 99.574 returning negative results.
or positive test approximately every 2.3 days and an actual positive result from an infected worker every 38 days.

This also highlights the need to not focus on the unvaccinated, as while they may be more likely to become infectious this is outweighed by the fact that there are many more vaccinated people that still can (even though they are less likely to be on an individual level). In the case above if you only tested unvaccinated workers you would potentially miss catching 2 or 3 additional actual infections early compared with if you were testing everyone... although you would also be needed to deal with a false negative every few days which will be a significant burden on the operations (especially following the MoH guide for RA Testing linked above).

All the above is to say that some significant consideration on the actual effectiveness for how you will use RA testing is needed. One example where the benefits will likely be worth the effort/impact is for a response to a positive Covid case in the workforce - to augment the health monitoring of casual contacts who can continue to work while monitoring for Covid symptoms

Thing is Matt, any joinery shop machining MDF isn't going to be able to suck all the dust being generated by either using centralized vacuum systems, LEVs or a mixture of both. The use of positive pressure RPEs seemed a logical way to deal with the problem — Steve H

Yeah that is one issue with how the Hierarchy of Controls is written in the legislation - if you can't eliminate you must (SFARP) substitute or isolate the hazard, or use engineering controls (have to do at least one). Then once you've done that if there is still a risk put in place admin controls to further minimise the risk (SFARP) and then minimise any remaining risk (no reference to SFARP in this one) by providing PPE.
issue is there is this is very linear and doesn't go back and confirm if what was done in a previous steps is now still relevant with the addition of a later step - example in this case, Stuart could go and spend $60k buying 6 portable LEV to manage the MDF dust at the source (a reasoanbly practicable requirement), but (as you said) not all the dust will be captured so there is still a need to (after providing suitable training of course) provide his workers with RPE. But now even disposable P2 masks could be considered reasonably practicable as it is just the last little bit of dust so these are used. Now they could have also provided pressurised RPE but after that $60k spent on LEV there isn't another $20-30k to spend on providing each worker with one... so P2 disposables it is.
But if we look back and reevaluate the original decision of the LEV purchase considering the later decision for P2s or pressurised RPE that decision to purchase LEV starts looking less optimal with all things considered...
Maybe if we claim that providing presurised RPE is essentially individually isolating each worker from the hazard, or is in itself an engineering control! :rofl:

The most common ones are wood dust - such as joiners and other types of fabrication in factories and engineering workshops (welding and grinding.) There are a bunch of others, it is a long list. Mostly they are inside a building. The hazard predominantly is particulate (respirable, inhalable, black carbon, diesel, wood) and other hazards from welding fumes. — Stuart Keer-Keer

What to do - manage the hazard so they don't need masks. But what if that is not reasonably practicable? — Stuart Keer-Keer

What has been considered so far to minimize the dusts, etc. and the reasons for these not being reasonably practical? Remembering that legally the duty is to minimise the risk and then provide other administrative controls and PPE if there is any remaining risk.
From the description of workshop type environments I would have assumed some form of local exhaust ventilation (LEV) would be able to be implemented, if not a fixed central system then the provision of a suitable number of portable LEV units. Also if beards are an issue then going to a positive pressure / powered RPE might be needed - most are full face masks but sometimes this is an added benefit as the can also incorporate other PPE requirements (eye protection, hearing protection, hard hat, welding, etc.) - they can be costly though

Also interesting that the Vaccination Certificate order seems to be drafted and released to other Government agencies but not to the wider public. Most people are waiting anxiously for the new orders relating to the various Covid Protection Framework requirements to be able to plan exactly what they need to do from Friday onwards... hopefully we see them soon. — MattD2

So I was wrong about that - aparently this was release on Sunday (28th Nov)... unfortunately the list of active orders under the Covid Act on the Covid-19.govt.nz website has not been updated to reflect this.

Privacy Commissioner says No. — KeithH

Or specifically they have said:

Our Office also advocated for legislative protection of personal information collected so that it cannot be reused or repurposed by the business collecting it. — KeithH

or in other words "we'll deal with any issues after the horse has bolted"
And

Where another law requires personal information to be used in a certain way, that will generally override the provisions in the Privacy Act. — KeithH

essentially saying the Government can decide whatever they want to do, remembering the bill to amend the act were rushed through in 2 days and the actual orders which are actually specifying how this information is collected and managed do not actually go through parliament but are just the on the whim of the Minister of Health or the Director-General of Health.

And the first comment from the Privacy Commission is related to distinguishing between vaccinated and exempt people - which they have said the Pass should not do because there is no need for it to do so - so it is the same question for the other Personal Information, for the purpose of confirming a person's vaccination or exempt status does the Pass need to include that information. With the way it is being proposed to be used it would seem like it doesn't.

Also interesting that the Vaccination Certificate order seems to be drafted and released to other Government agencies but not to the wider public. Most people are waiting anxiously for the new orders relating to the various Covid Protection Framework requirements to be able to plan exactly what they need to do from Friday onwards... hopefully we see them soon.

Here is a question - does the "My Covid Pass" breach the Privacy Act?

Information Privacy Principle 1 states that "Personal information must not be collected by an agency unless; the information is collected for a lawful purpose connected with a function or an activity of the agency; and the collection of the information is necessary for that purpose."

The purpose of the My Vaccine Pass is "... an official record of your COVID-19 vaccination status for use within Aotearoa New Zealand. It will allow you to access certain events and venues operating under the COVID-19 Protection Framework

The Pass includes personal information of a person's full name and their date of birth, however are these actually required for the purpose of the Pass?

It could be argued that the person's full name is needed to be provided to a business if business is expected to validate that a person is not using another persons Pass by cross checking a Pass against another photo ID. However MBIE's advice is that a business is not required to check any other ID - a person wanting to enter a premise where Vaccine Certificates are being used is required to only present their My Vaccine Pass to do so (https://www.business.govt.nz/news/requiring-my-vaccine-passes-for-entry/).
More specifically; why is a date of birth necessary for the Pass's purpose - especially when you consider that a date of birth is a piece critical information commonly used for the verification of a person (think of the most common question you are asked over the phone when a company wants to check it is really you - "what's your full name and date of birth, please?"
So should the MoH really be offering up this personal information? Especially when verification of the validity of a Pass holder could more effectively be enforced if the Verification App could be used to validate only a (random) portion of this information - e.g. if the business wants to verify a scanned Pass the App provides a question such as "What month were you born in?" or "what is your last name?" (although it would also require a rethink of the Pass to not provide the personal information in the QR code as cleartext).

Information Privacy Principle 11 also relates to the above question, in that whether "...the disclosure of the information is one of the purposes in connection with which the information was obtained or is directly related to the purposes in connection with which the information was obtained"? i.e. is the Pass giving the bouncer the purpose why the information was collected? I would argue it was not...

From 1 December businesses that choose to use rapid antigen tests for surveillance testing will be able to directly source approved tests from the following authorised suppliers (all are nasal swabs): — Business.govt.nz

What was the basis for not allowing businesses to directly source RAT themselves (either from local of international distributors)?

I understand if it is in relation to some legal requirement (e.g. if they changed the vaccine order to be either vaccinated or "this specific" RAT) but if it was just a business wanting to do better the just "do you have Covid symptoms" for higher risk workers (e.g. short term labour they have sourced out of Auckland during the lockdown) then why is the Government getting in the way of this as it is essentially an employment relations matter and with good employee consultation shouldn't be an issue.

I'm just finding it hard to understand the rational of a lot of the decisions that the government is making around the management of Covid!