Ministry secrecy affronts
Councils felt decision to conceal case locations from them indicated a lack of trust
The Ministry of Health didn’t want local councils to know if there were coronavirus cases in their areas because it was worried about what they would do with the information.
Correspondence the New Zealand Herald gained under the Official Information Act reveals an email from MOH to the district health boardowned public health units on April 2, advising against publicising each territorial authority’s case numbers.
The MOH recommended DHBS not release the breakdowns because “PHUS may not be able to control what TAS do with this information,” the update from the National Health Co-ordination Centre PHU liaison team said.
But the
secrecy
irked
Waikato leaders, who told the Herald at the time that knowing cases were in their districts would help convince locals they needed to stay in lockdown. The Waikato DHB responded that it was following MOH guidelines in a bid to protect people’s privacy.
But a statement from the MOH at the time that DHBS could release the breakdown by TAS after the 1pm press conferences contradicted the advice being given to the DHBS directly as well as the latest information provided by them to the Herald this week which said it didn’t want the breakdown to be released by TAS if the number was under 10.
However, after Waikato leaders vented frustration about Waikato DHB not giving a district breakdown of cases, the MOH told DHBS they could release them by TAS, according to the OIA documents.
Hauraki mayor Toby Adams said the initial refusal to release the information felt as if the MOH didn’t trust them. Hugh Vercoe, chair of the Waikato Civil Defence and Emergency Management joint committee, said the councils had not asked for anything that would breach privacy.
The MOH did not respond to questions about why it initially told the Herald DHBS were free to release the information when this contradicted the guidelines for DHBS, but a spokesperson said providing case breakdowns at an early stage when numbers were low risked identifying people. This hadn’t changed.
Knowing cases
were in their districts would help convince locals to stay in lockdown.