COVID-19 NZ Contact Tracing
Disclaimer: These views are my own as a technologist and a professional that has worked extensively both in technology solution development & in the NZ health sector. They are my own and not necessarily shared with others with whom I am associated.
As COVID-19 swept the world off it’s feet, NZ’s Government made the hard decision to make the “Team of 5 million” isolate at home, and to enforce restrictions at our border.
While the decision at the time was highly debated, the results initially spoke for themselves with NZ managing to effectively eliminate the virus in our beautiful land of the long white cloud.
My experience in the NZ health sector tells me there was no choice. Our public health system has suffered for decades with a broken funding system, a lack of investment & increasing need for their services.
Source: Hospitals on the edge – A report by the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists
NZ as an example had 25.7 hospital beds per 10,000 population in 2019 which when compared with Australia (which many drew comparison with when we first locked down and they weren’t as restricted) had 38.4 hospital beds per 10,000 population.
If we had an outbreak the size of the one in Victoria, there would be bodies piling up in the streets.
We don’t have enough emergency department beds to meet the countries needs without a pandemic like COVID-19, let alone enough to deal with a pandemic that has ripped through the world as we know it. These facilities are not built with a pandemic in mind and offer little in the way of isolation.
My general feeling is the Team of 5 Million feel ripped off
Because they did their part in isolating at the expense of our economy, our livelihood and in some people’s circumstances important events with friends and family (births, birthdays, death, funerals).
Because the virus has been allowed to get past our border restrictions despite reassurance it was under control
Because we still don’t have an effective nationwide COVID-19 contact tracing solution meaning we have to go into lockdown every time there is a re-emergence of the virus
The NZ Government’s COVID-19 tracing app is still not up to standard for a few reasons
It does well at tracing visits to businesses, but it does not provide effective tracing of face to face contact with family, friends or strangers outside of a visit to a physical premise
It requires the user to remember to make entries or scan QR codes
It does not give the NZ government real time data on contact tracing. If someone is identified as a confirmed or probable case (assuming they use the app) The Ministry of Health then need their permission to access the digital diary from their phone
Due to the above the Ministry of Health can’t contact people that may have come into close contact with a confirmed or probable case other than to broadcast a press release or through manual contact tracing
Privacy vs Convenience
Why do the Team of 5 Million feel ripped off?
Because they were never consulted on privacy and modern apps have made them expect convenience out of the box. Personally, I would be happy to share my data with the Ministry of Health (MoH) for the purpose of contact tracing for COVID-19.
At the very least they could have had an opt in/opt out screen when registering the app for your contact tracing, and notification of close contact to be automated in return for giving up some privacy. Because the benefit of that data in the right hands outweighs the infringement on my privacy for the purpose the data is being collected for.
But what about the COVID card?
To me this scheme is well intentioned, but poorly thought out. Why would you expect people to carry another device when most have a device in their pocket capable of the same technology, with the benefit of also having easy connectivity? For the $1 million spent to trial the COVID card in Rotorua with 300 people they could have bought 29,403 of the cheapest Android smartphone available today in the NZ market (and that is before brokering a deal with a NZ Telco). No data plan? No issue we could make the upload free much like a call to 111 is free. The card also has the same limitations around real time contact tracing that the current COVID-19 app has.
In Conclusion
I believe like face masks that real time contact tracing should be a mandatory requirement. I can’t believe in this day & age that NZers wouldn’t share their data with with the Ministry of Health under the circumstances, when many of us do under normal conditions with companies like Apple, Google, Garmin etc.
s the prime minister has already said in her news conferences re-emergence of virus is a “when” not an “if”. Without an adequate contact tracing solution (of which there are many commercially available NZ made apps) then our only option is lock down as they can’t quickly identify those who may have had contact with someone at risk. Unfortunately many small businesses particularly in Auckland will pay the ultimate price for that privacy. I see this as another challenge on which NZ can inform the world’s view. We have incredibly smart technologists and clinicians and a mentality of innovation (Number 8 wire) that our small country enables. We could set the standard for contact tracing – Ministry of Health just need to work with industry to make it happen.