Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

A “chaotic shambles” is how one reporter this week described the Government’s RAT kit rollout for critical workers - and that sums up the week really - if not the whole pandemic, let’s be honest. We’ve got a cumbersome and clunky critical worker RAT kit rollout requiring businesses to register with six forms of ID.  Six.  Set up systems in their workplace to manage this, get hold of the RATs and be clear on the rules. Which, speaking of rules – they keep changing, you get a conflicting message every time you call – even the Ministry seems unclear on what exactly the rules are.  That’s if you can get hold of the Ministry. I know of someone who called the Covid line – they were 146th and then 94th in line, on two separate calls. That’s a system not coping – a chaotic shambles indeed. I also know of someone whose child was unwell, she took him for a Covid test. Four days later there was still no result. He felt fine and wanted to return to school but she needed to check his test result. No answers, no one knew,