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‘Bluetooth proximity detection’ could be included in next month’s NZ COVID Tracer app update, as the Health Ministry recognizes that the proposed CovidCard “has the potential to help make contact tracing faster.” .
Initial testing of CovidCard found that it can work under controlled conditions, but a ministry spokesperson said additional testing was needed to investigate how it could work in a real-world setting.
That test is now being designed and will seek to determine if the cards were compatible with the ministry’s contact tracing systems and “if the public would accept and use them,” a spokeswoman explained.
KEVIN STENT / things
Contact tracing teams from the Ministry of Health have sent 18 exposure notifications during the Covid-19 pandemic.
CovidCards uses bluetooth technology to help with efficient bulk contact tracing, and would eliminate the need for a person to carry a smartphone and log into locations using the COVID Tracer app.
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An example of exposure notifications sent to NZ COVID Tracer app users who have been to the same time and location as a confirmed Covid-19 case. SUPPLIED
CovidCards work by exchanging bluetooth signals with other tokens, providing a record of who people have been in close contact with and for how long.
Meanwhile, contact tracing teams have finally started to embrace the in-app exposure notification feature, sending 18 alerts to date, compared to the one-time notification sent just a month ago.
Contact tracing teams from the Ministry of Health have sent 18 exposure notifications to users of the NZ COVID Tracer app. SUPPLIED
Exposure notifications are sent to app users to inform them that they have been in a location at the same time as a person who tested positive for the virus.
John Sefton / Press room
Contact tracing teams sent out four exposure notifications after a nurse at Auckland’s Jet Park Covid-19 quarantine hotel contracted the virus.
Four of these alerts were related to a recent positive Covid-19 test returned by a nurse at Auckland’s Jet Park hotel, the country’s only dedicated quarantine facility.
The circumstances that led to the nurse contracting the virus have now been the subject of a clinical review, Chief Health Officer Dr Ashley Bloomfield confirmed on Wednesday.
Releasing the new exposure notification figures, the ministry said the app was a “good example of combining technology with human experience.”
“The updated contact information provided through the application makes the contact and interview process much faster and easier,” a statement read.
Officials on the contact tracing team walked reporters through their systems and processes during a seminar Wednesday.
There, the teams claimed the app was just one tool in their contact tracing toolbox, and that most of the information they collect about the movements of a person linked to a Covid case comes from interviews, Astrid said. Koornneef, group manager for the ministry’s national detection unit.
“What’s important for us to know is where people have been and … the Covid Tracer app, alone, will never be the complete answer for contact tracing. The investigation of the case, the conversation with the case and the conversation with the person concerned and the investigator, that is the most crucial part of the process.
“That’s where we extract all the information because people sometimes forget to scan or can go to places where there are no QR codes.
“The value of the Tracer app is [that it is] giving us a lot of information and that really helps inform the path and then a case investigator works with the person to really complete that, the rest of the story, “Koornneef said.
