Kiwis’ use of tracer app falls

The Government is urging Kiwis to keep up with contact tracing efforts but is remaining tight-lipped about its own activities.

This week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Chris Hipkins reminded their team of five million about the importance of a digital or written diary for contact tracing. It comes as the number of people using the NZ Covid Tracer app have dwindled.

The number of available QR codes has increased as more businesses printed them out, with about 77,224 posters created to date. However, the number of people scanning them had not kept pace, Ardern said.

Ministry of Health figures show there are 591,000 registered users of the app and 1,367,121 poster scans to date.

From June 9 to 15 there had been 229,437 scans but from June 30 to July 6 this had reduced to 67,312 scans.

Hipkins said officials wanted to see the number of people using the app increase.

‘‘These numbers are low, and we do want to lift our game here. That is going to require, again, the team of five million to play their part and make sure they are using those posters.’’

‘‘We will continue to identify gaps and look to plug those. The bit that is missing is that people are not scanning them and not downloading the app.’’

Today he will meet the team overseeing contact tracing to talk about the details of what was happening. He would take on any recommendations for further government action to ensure the system was working as intended, he said. ‘‘At this point my message to New Zealanders is, you all have the ability to play a bigger role here and to use the free, easy app, please do.’’

Last month, Stuff requested digital diaries for 20 ministers, including Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters.

The request made under the Official Information Act asked for details of any contact tracing tools, such as apps, that they had been using and what advice Cabinet had been given about the apps. Much of the request was declined but included links to proactive releases, which were not relevant. ‘‘The choice of contact tracing tool or tools used by the minister is made as a private individual. This part of your request is also refused,’’ Stuff was told.

Stuff was sent the same template response from all officials and directed to ministers’ online diaries, which contained no detail about their tracing efforts.

The carbon copy responses stated that all New Zealanders had been asked to keep a record of where they have been as part of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic. ‘‘For ministers, keeping this record is something undertaken as a private individual, the same as other New Zealanders.’’