Government still has work to do to prevent playing 'Russian roulette' with Kiwis' health: epidemiologist

An epidemiologist and public health expert expressed fears that politicians may be playing “Russian roulette” with Kiwis’ lives when it weighs up whether to ease lockdown restrictions next Monday.

Sir David Skegg appeared before the Epidemic Response Committee this morning and said health authorities hadn’t yet completed improvements to rapid contact tracing and surveilling where Covid-19 is present in the population.

Despite the number of reported cases in a day dropping, Mr Skegg said more testing needed to be done “to ensure we are on the path to elimination” and allow the Government to make an informed decision.

“I would submit we are asking the cabinet to play Russian roulette with the health of New Zealanders,” he told the committee.

Mr Skegg said the country should be able to trace all close contacts within two to three days and have surveillance testing processes in place by the end of the week.

"As soon as the lockdown is lifted, the epidemic will take off again unless we have the other measures in place,” he said.

However, the Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield wasn’t able to tell the committee how long contact tracing was taking. He was questioned today by committee chair and leader of the opposition Simon Bridges.

Dr Bloomfield said this was due to the “very manual system” the Health Ministry used up until the last week.

He also said at today’s press conference that about 1.1 per cent of the population had been tested and that this would be increased.

When 1 NEWS asked Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to respond to Dr Skegg’s comments at today’s post-Cabinet press conference, she said Cabinet didn’t take any decisions lightly.

“We, of course, have to make a decision that we can have confidence in,” she said.

Ms Ardern said Cabinet was not making any decision about the duration of alert Level 4 until April 20 to ensure it had as much information possible.

The Government was investigating the Singaporean TraceTogether app as a potential monitoring tool to help stop the spread of Covid-19. The app uses Bluetooth technology to record close contacts of the phone’s user.

However, Ms Ardern said “no tracking app provides a silver bullet”.

The Ministry of Health said it hoped to have a tracking app operational by mid-May.