Thousands having problems with Bluetooth

Director-general of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield extolling the virtues of the Covid App. Photo / NZ Herald

Thousands of people have asked the Ministry of Health for help after having trouble enabling Bluetooth on the Covid-19 tracer app, which at last report had 2,514,708 registered users.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said for those who were out and about over last week's anniversary weekend in Auckland and Northland, and this coming Waitangi Day long weekend, it was more important than ever that people kept a record of where they had been.

"We continue to strongly encourage people to continue to scan using the NZ Covid Tracer app and turn on Bluetooth," he said.

"The more we all scan, the safer we'll all be. Scanning helps our contact tracers to quickly find and alert any potential close and casual contacts of people who have tested positive for Covid-19."

However, about 20 per cent of cellphones could not use the Covid Tracer app's Bluetooth function. Android phones needed to be running Android 6 or above, have Google Play Services enabled, and have Bluetooth Low Energy capability, while iPhones must be running iOS 13.5 or above.

As of last week the Ministry of Health had received about 3500 queries from people who were having trouble enabling Bluetooth tracing. The most common complaint was from users of iPhone 6 and older, making up about a third of the total.

The ministry said it was looking at what was needed to update the app.

"Recently, Apple released support for the exposure notifications feature that enables Bluetooth tracing in iOS 12.5, which will run on iPhone 6," a spokesperson said.

"We are looking at what we need to do to update the NZ Covid Tracer app to support Bluetooth tracing on these older iPhones, but we don't currently have a timeframe for this."

The ministry recommended that people with an Android 5 device use the Rippl app to scan QR codes, and keep a digital diary.

"This is a privately developed app, but it is also integrated with our contact tracing systems," the spokesperson added.

Details on enabling Bluetooth are available on the ministry's website.