Contact tracing fiasco pains me

Our contact tracing methods in shops and cafes are a collective stuff-up. Retailers are letting us down and so is government policy, technology and our own personal attitudes.

Yet every part of our economy and the future reopening of our borders rely on us nailing contact tracing.

Alert level 1 is creeping up and we might be dancing around with the Aussies very soon. That doesn’t mean QR codes, apps and pesky clipboards will be defunct. They are the final and most important safety net we possess.

Don’t rely on an economic jab The entire world population wants a jab if a vaccine is discovered. Waiting for manufacture, distribution and a jabbed tourist to turn up on a holiday to New Zealand is going to add an even longer tail to the economic pain.

We must open our minds to opening our borders, pre-vaccine, with many layers of risk management. We already have a culture that predisposes us to doing it well. We hunt down fruit flies, sniff out a banana in luggage and rip muddy boots from the feet of tourists. Other countries are aghast at our vigour.

While it seems implausible to shove a foot-long cotton bud up the nose of every visitor, we need to think of alternatives. The Government will formulate these layers and we assume it will consist of pre-travel or inairport testing, heat screening, and sniffer dogs to catch asymptomatic cases if trials prove successful.

When a Covid-19 case slips between the cracks, the big safety net supporting our border controls and economy must be a robust, quick and consistent tracing system.

We will need to become a nation of 5 million vigilantes. Every single one of us has to lead by example. If we can’t do it ourselves, we can’t ask the tourists to care any more than we do.

If you’re heading away for Queen’s Birthday Weekend, will you recall everywhere you’ve been in two weeks’ time? Bank accounts provide a good trail, but what if we pre-paid for an activity, paid in cash, didn’t buy anything, or a friend treated us?

Think of a young person or tourist – three bars a night over multiple nights, drunk and on holiday. The lists being kept for secondary tracing are of no use if an infected person doesn’t have a good memory, an accurate bank account or a movement log.

If you need an economic reason to give up some privacy, just look at the Reserve Bank forecast that another level 4 lockdown could leave us with 18 per cent unemployment. Right now the Government app is as useful as a wet tea towel. It’s being seen as optional for retailers and that renders it useless as a movement log.

What’s going wrong?

Let’s start with shops and cafes. What is your excuse for not having the Government QR code in your window? Your future depends on it. Instead you have your own codes. I tried five shops and cafes and got ‘‘error’’ before I realised there’s a QR bungle going on.

In the words of one Christchurch barista: ‘‘Yeah, we’re not using that government thing. No-one’s really interested because they have to sign in to ours or use the paper clipboard.’’

I commented that we need a full record of where we’ve been and got told, ‘‘Nah, it’s just too confusing.’’ In their defence, this double system is bonkers. They are obliged to keep a list and the Government app doesn’t ping my info to them.

Consumers also have a lot to answer for. I’ve stood behind people in cafes who looked at the clipboard, shrugged, and said: ‘‘I can’t be bothered.’’ Not all clipboards are monitored and it’s tricky to call out a stranger. Then there’s the comedians signing in as Donald Duck and the weirdo in Nelson who has stalked one of my mother’s friends by getting her home phone number off a cafe list.

The vast majority of us who are compliant are already getting contact tracing fatigue. After the fourth clipboard in a day, you stop spending.

Regulatory inconsistency downgrades the value of contact tracing in our minds. An hour in a supermarket and there’s no tracing, but a two-minute takeaway coffee requires my phone number. One cafe takes no details because they’re also a general store. The next has a table with a cup of clean pens, a cup of dirty pens, sanitiser and a clipboard requiring detail to raid my bank account. No wonder Donald Duck and the stalker are at the table next to me.

The Government sits at the bottom of all this and technology holds the key. I hope there’s a way my phone will ‘‘ping’’ as I walk into each store or restaurant. Or one universal QR system where my log transfers a mobile number to a retailer or cafe. There should be no inconsistencies; every public venue needs a code.

Go hard and go fast now needs to apply to contact tracing. It is the conduit between the safety of our citizens, our economic productivity returning and opening our borders. Dramatic improvement is needed before the Aussies arrive.

Janine Starks is a financial commentator with expertise in banking, personal finance and funds management. Opinions in this column are her personal views. They are general in nature and not a recommendation, opinion or guidance to any individuals in relation to acquiring or disposing of a financial product. Readers should not rely on these opinions and should always seek independent financial advice appropriate to their own circumstances.