5. Question No. 5—HealthHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 5—Health5. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: What percentage of COVID-19 close contacts identified between 18 April and 24 April were successfully contacted and how many of those contacts were made within three days?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): The latest national data available for cases notified is to the period 18 to 20 April. For this period 100 percent of close contacts were followed up within three days. National data collected from all public health units requires manual collation from a number of sources. Therefore there is a time lag between activity and reporting. The close-contact data for probable and confirmed cases notified 21 to 27 April will be available in coming days.Hon Michael Woodhouse: If the gold standard for close contacts is so important why is it not possible for the Minister of Health to advise this House of more recent data on performance?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I would note that the 100 percent record is quite impressive. The data that we are getting through shows that the primary healthcare follow-up from the public health units is indeed meeting the standards that we would hope to be gold standard treatment. The challenge that we have currently is that people are not necessarily coming forward soon enough for testing once they have symptoms and so I would encourage the public to come forward and get tested because that is so important to our COVID effort.Hon Michael Woodhouse: When he said that 100 percent of close contacts between 18 and 20 April were followed up does followed up" mean successfully contacted?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: That is what I have been advised by the Ministry of Health.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Have the situation reports from the Ministry of Health to him that have been released to my office had information removed from them prior to release?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Not that I'm aware of. I would assume that—Hon Member: Do you mean the SITREP?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: If the member's talking about the situation reports they go out quite widely. Unless there was commercial information or any other very specific reason I would expect that the member would receive those reports in their entirety.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Why then do those situation reports not contain the very information that he claims is so important to continue suppression of the virus?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I think the member's aware that historically that information was not centrally collected. We as a Government have put in place a system that no Government before has put in place. We have gone from a situation where there was only local-level activity to one where the Government has put $70 million into public health and contact tracing. We've seen the National Close Contact Service established with a staff of more than 200 a new national IT solution set up and we're adding surge response to increase staffing in our public health units by up to 300 fulltime-equivalent staff. That represents a huge scaling up of our public health capacity and I want to thank all of those working at the front line for making this possible.Hon Michael Woodhouse: In respect of that IT solution can he confirm that all 12 public health units are using the national electronic platform for contact tracing?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I can confirm that the intention is for all of them to use it; I can find out for the member whether they are all on the system. If he wants to put a question down in writing I can get back to him on that."