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An independent report on contact tracking efforts revealed that the system was overloaded with less than 100 daily coronavirus cases.
The critical report on the public health measure, written by Dr Ayesha Verrall, an infectious disease specialist, found that it was taking more than two days to trace contacts of Covid-19 cases and advise them to self-isolate after New Zealand entered closing.
The report also revealed official efforts to build a cell phone app to help track people’s movements.
Tracking contacts has become a critical part of the response to the Covid-19 spread, and there has been widespread concern that it has lagged behind other measures, such as border control and testing to detect the virus. .
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Dr. Ayesha Verrall, from the University of Otago, wrote an independent report in the Ministry of Health contact tracking system.
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Experts say a more effective system, which quickly tracks people who have come into contact with someone who tests positive for the virus, is vital for New Zealand to safely abandon the blockade.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, when she extended a four-week shutdown to the country on Monday afternoon, announced that the Government would spend another $ 55 million to strengthen the contact locating system.
The Verrrall report was released by the Ministry of Health shortly after.
In the report, Verrall said that during March the contact tracking system was overloaded by less than 100 daily Covid-19 cases.
“Many cases were returned travelers who had taken domestic flights, meaning the contact tracking workload was extremely high. As the number of cases increased in March, it became clear that the workload would exceed capacity. of many PHUs, “he said in the report.
The ministry created a nationalized contact tracking “center” called the National Close Contact Service, which began operations on March 24, a day before New Zealand entered the closure.
Regional public health units, which have been managing contact tracing for their district health boards, were able to forward close contacts of a Covid-19 case to employees at the central tracking center.
By April 6, 200 employees had been trained with a new contact tracking system that was linked to the contact details contained in the National Health Index.
During these first two weeks of confinement, the average time between identifying a positive Covid-19 case and telling the person’s contacts to isolate themselves was 2.3 days.
“The timeliness of the process was poor,” said Verrall.
“Only 60% of contacts could be easily contacted by phone, either because of incorrect contact details or because people choose not to answer calls from an unidentified number.
“Links were established between the National Health Index and other health data sets to address the first problem.”
He said that staff from regional public health units were cautious in referring the tracing work to the central center, as they were unable to access their contact tracing system to see how quickly contacts had been reached.
ABIGAIL DOUGHERTY / STUFF
A line of people spills onto the street waiting to enter the Countdown supermarket on Stoddard Rd in Mt Roskill, Auckland. Social distancing is a key response to the spread of the coronavirus, and so is contact tracing when people with Covid-19 come into contact with others. But New Zealand’s contact tracking system may not be up to the task of leaving the block, experts say. (file photo)
Verrall said that to adequately strengthen contact tracing, regional health units, which could only send part of their tracing work to the central center, would have better resources.
“It is highly likely that there will be multiple instances of community transmission that need case management and contact tracking at intervals and across the country over the next year and beyond.
“To avoid regular national returns to level 4 restrictions, [regional public health unit] capacity must be increased … [they] “We need the ability to handle cases and groups with confidence through a combination of case isolation, contact tracking, and potentially targeted movement restrictions.”
Verrall said the ministry and local developers were building a smartphone app, which he did not name, but did not provide further details as the app was still being considered.
She said that any app would need to be developed and tested quickly, and used by large numbers of New Zealanders to be effective.
There is the possibility of using both an application that records people’s close contacts through the Bluetooth detection of another phone, and an application that uses QR codes to scan people on public transport or coffee shops, tracking their movements.
The ministry confirmed Monday that it was working on a range of products that would be “useful to help ensure that we fill in the gaps in people’s memories and identify close contacts that the positive person does not know about.”
Director-General Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, who commissioned the report from Verrall, said efforts to expand and nationalize the tracking system continued “at a good pace.”
Bloomfield has described the “gold standard” of contact tracking – the ability to track 80 percent of a person’s contacts in three days – is days away.
Bloomfield said Verrall was “complementary” to the work being done to improve the system and that he had only identified small gaps.
The national contact tracking center could now track up to 5,000 contacts each day, Bloomfield said.
“We will continue to develop our capacity, what we want to be able to do is expand even faster if necessary.”
Ardern said it was still important to have contact search staff with “local knowledge” of their communities, therefore regional public health units would be funded with the $ 55 million boost, and “augmentation capacity” would be added “from a hundred other full-time employees.
ACT leader David Seymour said the government had failed to sufficiently build contact tracing capacity, and this was why the blockade was extended.
“The delay is actually due to the Government failing to bring its contact tracking skills to an adequate level. It has nothing to do with additional certainty, because there is no indication that this decision could change if the results of our Evidence deteriorates between now and Monday, “he said.
National leader Simon Bridges similarly attacked government efforts to lift the blockade, saying the contact locating system was seriously flawed.
The “preliminary work” had not been done and the companies would suffer, he said.
HAGEN HOPKINS / THINGS
Director-General for Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield said New Zealand was within days of having a “gold standard” contact tracking system. (file photo)
ROBUST TRACKING NECESSARY
The opportunity for the virus to spread will grow as people leave their homes and their contacts with others multiply, prompting experts to call for a more effective contact tracking system.
Sir David Skegg, an epidemiologist who recently appeared on Parliament’s epidemic response selection committee, said contact tracing could be the “Achilles’ heel” in the response to the coronavirus.
The tracking system needed “tremendously improved” capacity before the blockade ends, he told lawmakers.
Professor Michael Baker, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago, has published with colleagues such as Verrall an article describing contact tracking as essential to the “successful and sustained elimination” of Covid-19.
“Such [tracing] systems must be supported by the effective use of digital technologies, including mobile phones, “the academics said.
In a titled job The future is now: implications of Covid-19 for New ZealandSir Peter Gluckman and colleagues at the University of Auckland described existing contact search efforts, as well as surveillance tests in the community, as “far from ideal.”
“Tracking contacts is critical to breaking infectious disease pandemics and will be even more important once we reach [lower alert levels] to reduce the risk of a major outbreak, “the newspaper says.
Gluckman, the prime minister’s former scientific adviser, said manual tracking of contracts would not be enough if there was an “explosion” of the virus next winter.
“People don’t want to go in and out of the confinement, or high levels versus low levels. People have made great sacrifices … We owe it to all of them and to our safety to have all the weapons in our hands that will keep us safe,” he said. Stuff earlier this month.
