Judith Collins challenges the government's claim that border employees refused to take Covid-19 tests.
Health authorities shouldn't lean too hard on digital contact tracing systems like the NZ Covid Tracer app to fight outbreaks, finds a new Kiwi-led systematic review that points to people-power.
The review, published in the Cochrane Library, explored the effectiveness of digital tech in tracking down contacts of positive cases to isolate them and curb transmission.
After analysing six observational studies from outbreaks of various infectious diseases around the world, along with six studies that simulated epidemics, the researchers found a need for authorities not to over-rely on digital tools.
"Digital technologies, combined with other public health interventions, may help to prevent the spread of infectious diseases but the technology is largely unproven in real-world, outbreak settings," said the review's leader, Dr Andrew Anglemyer, of Otago University's Department of Preventive and Social Medicine.
"Modelling studies provide low certainty of evidence of a reduction in cases, and this only occurred when digital contact tracing solutions were used together with other public health measures such as self-isolation."
However, he added, limited evidence showed that the technology itself may produce more reliable counts of contacts.
"Digital technologies... may help to prevent the spread of infectious diseases but the technology is largely unproven in real-world, outbreak settings," says Dr Andrew Anglemyer. Photo / Supplied
Overall, Anglemyer and his international colleagues concluded there was still a place for digital tech in contact tracing.
"The findings of our review suggest that to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, governments should consider digital technologies as a way to improve current contact tracing methods, not to replace them," the team state.
"In the real world, they won't be pitted against each other, the technology would hopefully just augment the current contact tracing methods in a given country."
They recommended governments consider issues of privacy and equity when choosing digital contact tracing systems.
"If governments implement digital contact tracing technologies, they should ensure that at-risk populations are not disadvantaged and they need to take privacy concerns into account," the said.
"The Covid-19 pandemic is disproportionately affecting ethnic minorities, the elderly and people living in high deprivation.
"These health inequities could be magnified with the introduction of digital solutions that do not consider these at-risk populations, who are likely to have poor access to smartphones with full connectivity."
Contact tracing teams in the studies reviewed reported that digital data entry and management systems were faster to use than paper systems for recording of new contacts and monitoring of known contacts and possibly less prone to data loss.
But the researchers conclude there is "very low certainty evidence" that contact tracing apps could make a substantial impact on the spread of Covid-19, while issues of low adoption, technological variation and health equity persist.
Accessibility or privacy and safety concerns were also identified in some of the studies.
Problems with system access included patchy network coverage, lack of data, technical problems with hardware or software that were unable to be resolved by local technical teams and higher staff training needs including the need for refresher training
Staff also noted concerns around accessibility and logistical issues in administering the systems, particularly in marginalised or under-developed areas of the world.
The new research came as the Covid-19 pandemic shows no signs of waning and the World Health Organisation and more than 30 countries are exploring how digital technology solutions could help stop the spread of the virus.
The NZ COVID Tracer has now recorded just shy of 1.5 million users – 1,499,000 which is 37 per cent of the population aged 15 and over.
There have now been more than 234,000 posters created, along with 7,240,000 poster scans and more than 1,081,000 manual entries.
