Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield is encouraging businesses to “get with the programme” and adopt the Government’s NZ COVID-Tracer app.
“This is something that will be helpful for all New Zealanders,” Dr Bloomfield said today.
“It’s not a lengthy or troublesome operation to register for a NZ business number, to download the QR code and display it for people.
“We are looking at this point in time at a requirement on businesses to do so as we move into Alert Level 1.”
Dr Bloomfield said this was because it would form a “very important part” of helping people remember where they had been if ever contact tracing was required during Alert Level 1.
It comes as 1 NEWS revealed last week that just 10,000 of the eligible 800,000 businesses have adopted the Government's app. 1 NEWS also revealed registered users were only using the app an average of once per download .
More than 450,000 people have downloaded the app since launching but there are concerns there aren't many places for people to actually use it.
Dr Bloomfield said as of today, there had been 495,000 registrations on the app - 8000 more than yesterday. However, he did not have figures on the number of businesses currently displaying a QR code for the app.
The app allows users to track where they’ve been by scanning QR codes at various establishments. Data is then stored on the user’s phone and is able to be released to health officials when required for contact tracing purposes.
Dr Bloomfield said he expected all businesses to adopt the app as “it’s not a big ask”.
He said the potential consequences of businesses not doing so could be slower contact tracing.
“That may require, then, restrictions to be put in place.
“I think we all have a common interest in avoiding that.”
However, many who’ve downloaded the app have said it’s difficult to use .
In response to these concerns, Dr Bloomfield said the app “worked just fine” whenever he tried to use it.
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