An update released today by the Health Minister shows all recommendations from Dr Ayesha Verrall's Covid-19 contact tracing audit had been started, but some, including a tracing app, are facing delay.
David Clark said public health units had “more than tripled their capacity and can now deal with up to 185 cases a day - that's up from about 50 cases a day seven weeks ago”.
A National Close Contact Service (NCCS) was also created to help support contact tracing efforts.
“The NCCS, which didn’t even exist eight weeks ago, has more than 200 staff who can make up to 10,000 close contact calls a day,” Dr Clark said.
He said work to progress the recommendations was “well underway” and could handle extra demand if needed.
However, some recommendations classed as “in progress but with some delay” included a smartphone app to help contact tracing and real-time reporting to contact tracing performance.
"The contact tracing app is well developed and expected to be released for voluntary registration very soon," Dr Clark said.
"The Ministry of Health is working in collaboration with a number of agencies including the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Government’s own Chief Digital Officer to progress this work."
Officials will be able to use personal mobile data to help track the movements of users. (Source: Other)
Dr Verrall’s independent audit, released to Cabinet on April 20, found the contact tracing capability of public health units (PHU) was too slow and had to be expanded three- or four-fold while Covid-19 remained a health threat.
In March, when new case numbers were less than 100 a day, the audit found the workload to conduct fast contact tracing had already exceeded PHUs’ capacity. It also found DHBs’ information systems ranged from Excel sheets to purpose-built systems, making data sharing difficult.
The Government’s completed most of the audit’s recommendations, including:
The Health Ministry said $500 million from the Covid-19 health response fund had increased the PHUs' capacity.
The Health Ministry also released indicators of contact tracing on its website that it would be measuring against.
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