4. Question No. 4—HealthHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of HealthQuestion No. 4—Health4. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: What percentage of identified COVID-19 close contacts who have been contacted to date were contacted within three days?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Health): The most up-to-date data I have available covers the period 13 to 17 April. From the information provided to me by the Ministry of Health I can confirm to the House that 36 cases were identified as having close contacts a total of 120 close contacts were followed up 79 percent of those close contacts were traced within 48 hours and 91 percent were contacted within 72 hours. Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. An interesting answer that didn't address the primary question. The Minister has chosen a date range of four days out of the 60 days since our first case. SPEAKER: He did address the question. Hon Michael Woodhouse: What percentage of identified close contacts of COVID-19 cases who have been contacted to date between 29 February and 23 April—which is the last available update—were contacted within three days? Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: I have just provided the House with the most recent data available but I would note that until recently there was no national database for contact tracing as it was all being done by local public health units and this Government has done what no Government before has done. With the establishment of the National Close Contact Service we are now gathering national data and as such we're getting better access to an overall picture. Moving into the future we will have that data in a much more granular fashion than it has ever been provided before. Hon Michael Woodhouse: Why wasn't the data in a more granular fashion given the importance the Government has placed on early contact tracing? Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: Because as I noted no Government had ever set up a national contact tracing system. The steps forward in terms of the IT solution that supports that is going to be incredibly valuable as we move into the future and because of the efforts of nearly 5 million New Zealanders we are in a unique—almost—in the world position where we have the opportunity to stamp out this virus and into the future we will be able to have a very clear picture of how quickly that is happening. Hon Michael Woodhouse: Can he confirm the advice given to him in the ministry's situation report No. 83 that of the 10093 close contacts identified just 5560 were traced at all—a success rate of just 55 percent? Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: At present the average time to contact people is 1.1 days and my expectation is that as we continue to contact trace 80 percent of cases within 48 hours we will see a picture of success that we want to see as a nation. Hon Michael Woodhouse: How many of Dr Ayesha Verrall's six urgent or critical recommendations on contact tracing reporting have been fully implemented? Hon Dr DAVID CLARK: They are all being urgently implemented. The member can see from the data that I've just provided that we now have measures about how quickly contacts have been traced and the picture in recent times is a very very encouraging one. The bigger issue actually currently is the time taken between people first having symptoms and then getting a test done. That is our big challenge ahead and what all members of Parliament can do is encourage their constituents members of the public to seek a test at the very hint of any symptoms.