No new cases of Covid-19, 92,000 registrations on app

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has revealed there are no new cases of Covid-19 today and more than 92,000 New Zealanders have registered on a new 'digital diary' app.

Bloomfield said only one patient remained in hospital - at Middlemore Hospital.

The total number of cases since the pandemic began remains at 1503.

The Government's NZ Covid Tracer app was made available on app stores overnight.

"The app is another tool in our toolbox [to contact trace]."

The app has the function to scan QR codes at participating businesses so users can keep a digital log of their movements without needing to handover their personal details to businesses.

The only information held at the Ministry is the contact information you provide when you register, other records of where you've been is only stored on the phone, he said.

Users' data is kept securely on their phones, the Ministry of Health said, and is stored for 31 days and then automatically deleted.

Users can also register their details to the National Close Contact Service in order for them to be able to contact quickly if needed.

The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment is also contacting 800,000 businesses and already 1000 have downloaded QR code posters and more are being registered are at a rate of 10 per minute.

Issues with the app are being worked through, he said.

Bloomfield said any uptake of the app was "good and helpful" and the more the better as it helped with contact-tracing.

Privacy had been a major consideration of the app and had been worked through with the Privacy Commissioner, as would any future iterations which have Bluetooth functionality, he said.

Bloomfield said if he personally were to check into a cafe, he would probably just use the one app.

It's hoped the app would eventually take the place of manual sign-ins at businesses.

Anyone who's using fake details when signing into businesses should understand the purpose of providing their details, said Bloomfield.

Bloomfield said there was a "good incentive" for businesses to sign up to the app and move from a manual sign-in as it was much simpler.

The fact the data was stored in Australia "was neither here nor there" as a lot of our data was already stored around the world.

There have been a "relatively small number" of healthcare workers who'd applied for accommodation to avoid infecting their families.

Bloomfield has assured New Zealand he's been sleeping, despite the unfriendly hours of the World Health Assembly, as there were Ministry who staffed the graveyard shift to monitor it.

Bloomfield said New Zealand goes "to do our bit" and the Kiwi diplomats had a very good reputation among their colleagues, when asked whether our response had improved our mana at the WHO.

Those putting fake contact details at sign-in pages were potentially putting others at risk, said Bloomfield.

Later today Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will shed more light on the key considerations for lifting further restrictions under alert level 2 - and what needs to happen before a move to level 1.

A critical piece of that decision is the confidence that there is no risk of community transmission, with every single case being linked to a source. Yesterday marked 47 days since an infection could not be traced.

Ardern has previously said the 10-person limit on gatherings will be assessed at Cabinet on Monday and will today give more details on what criteria they'd want to see before making that decision.

But a shift to alert level 1 is unlikely in the very near future.

Bloomfield yesterday said it was "too premature" to say what was needed to get to level 1 as that work was only just getting under way.

And it was too early to say whether some regions without active cases could be moved down a level sooner than others.

"We're only just into level 2, we still need to settle into the full level 2 parameters, which include going up to group sizes of one hundred," Bloomfield said.

Bloomfield said the most likely way new cases would be now introduced was through a relaxing of our border with Australia under alert level 1.

But the health chief said he wasn't "so worried about the number" of new cases in that instance creeping back up again, but whether they could be identified and quickly contact-traced to ensure there was no community spread.

Meanwhile, Ardern said the Government was "actively considering" many options to spur the domestic travel market while the borders were still closed, including giving Kiwis more holidays.

Comments

Maybe he should have said he's been told to say this about the app. A very different story that.