Dr Ayesha Verrall's report into the Government's contact tracing regime for Covid-19 paints a very different picture to what is being portrayed in Government press conferences, National's Health spokesperson Michael Woodhouse says.
"Despite Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield today describing their contact tracing regime as being good, the report highlights that what the Government has in place is completely lacklustre.
"It shows a system where data collection, reporting and join-up is poor and to this day there is a general lack of timeliness.
"Despite being conducted two weeks into lockdown, the report made no fewer than six 'urgent' or 'critical' recommendations on how to improve New Zealand's contact tracing ability.
"As a direct comparison Australia has more than four times the number of contact tracing staff and is able to do end-to-end contact tracing in three days, while in New Zealand it takes more than two days just to instruct a contact to isolate.
