2. Question No. 2—HealthDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 2—HealthDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I seek leave for this question to be addressed to and answered by the Prime Minister as originally submitted. SPEAKER: Order! I am not prepared to put that leave to the House. This is a matter which has been—that approach has been taken and ruled out by Speakers many times in the past. The member knows that it is a right of the Government to transfer the question. Does the member want to continue with the question? DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Certainly Mr Speaker. I just thought that maybe the House would make a different choice but I appreciate—SPEAKER: Order! Order! If the member wants to proceed with the question he will without any further preface. 2. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Health: Does he agree with the Prime Minister's statement that The ability to contact trace quickly is one of the key tools we have to find new cases and get them in isolation to avoid future lockdowns so always using the app is a big investment in keeping our businesses and economy open"; if so how many of the identified 2300 close contacts of cases have been identified by two people checking in at the same location using the NZ COVID Tracer App? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Health): Yes but as I've said before in the House recently the COVID Tracer app is just one of the tools that's available to us. The work and expertise of the public health units and the National Close Contact Service remain the mainstays of our contact tracing system and I have confidence in the effectiveness of their work. In regard to the second part of the question the COVID Tracer app helps people to record where they've been and can be used to notify potential contacts of exposure to COVID-19. Public health units do not specifically record how they've identified the close contacts across all 2446 cases but I've been advised that the app is being used to help find the up-to-date contact details for close contact follow-up. It is in the case investigators' operating procedure to request the digital diary of a case where they have one. David Seymour: Can the public take from the Minister's answer that he doesn't know if the NZ COVID Tracer app has been at all useful in tracing the current outbreak? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: No and if he'd listened to my answer he would know that. David Seymour: If the Minister said there is no record of how many people have been traced using the NZ COVID Tracer app how could he know whether it's been useful? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: The better the records people have of their movements the faster that we can get in contact with all the people they've been in contact with. But I'd also point out that one of the things that we have been very clear about is that by registering for the COVID Tracer app the Ministry of Health gets people's up-to-date contact information and that's actually one of the most important steps in the process. It can slow down the contact tracing process considerably if we can't get hold of people. David Seymour: Why should people register and use the app when he as Minister of Health can't even explain if it's being useful in containing this outbreak? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Well I just did. David Seymour: If the Government believes that contact tracing is useful why didn't it make it mandatory to have QR codes in every business earlier so that more people used it and it might have been useful for tracing this outbreak? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: In the early days after the last lockdown was ended there were a number of different tracing applications that were being used by people and we've been working to improve the quality of the Government's COVID Tracer app so that we can have a standard system. One of the things that we've been working through is making sure that businesses only need to display one QR code even if people are using a different tracer app and that has involved working with other providers of tracer apps to make sure that the QR codes that we supply can be the one and only code that businesses need to display. We were able to conclude that work and actually businesses have welcomed that because it means less compliance for them and the need to display multiple codes is reduced. Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern: Can the Minister confirm that of all the analysis that's been done in overseas jurisdictions almost every single one of them has confirmed that the use of on-the-ground contact tracing through human-to-human contact is always necessary and that technological solutions alone will never be sufficient? Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes absolutely. I've always said and I think the Government has always said that our person-to-person contact tracing system is the mainstay of the system and I'd point out that no Government anywhere around the world has found that one magical technological solution that would short-circuit that process. What we've always said is that the COVID Tracer app helps to speed up the manual contact tracing process but that will always be the mainstay of the system."