Govt rules out mandatory QR code scanning citing 'logistical hurdles'

The Government has ruled out making scanning in via the Covid Tracer app mandatory, saying there are too many "hurdles".

Covid-19 Response Minister, Chris Hipkins says he has “canvassed” the issue over the past year. 

"Over the last year we have looked regularly at whether we could make QR code scanning mandatory and there are some really big logistical hurdles there," he told media today. 

"So in principle you could say ‘yep we should do that’ – the reality is how would you enforce it?"

"If you’re not enforcing it then it’s rather pointless making it mandatory. And actually it would add significant additional compliance, particularly for small businesses."

"So if you are running a shop with one or two people working in the shop and you are saying you’ve got to have someone on the door and you’ve got to turn customers away who are not signing in, I think that becomes quite challenging."

Hipkins says the Government wants people to use the QR system and the current situation in Wellington “reinforces the need for it” and while mandatory usage of it is something that has been looked at several times, he says he isn’t convinced it “would necessarily help us or make a difference to the actual uptake of QR codes”.

In mid-February this year, amid the Auckland lockdown, Kiwis scanning in was at an all-time high with 1, 854,901 scans recorded.

But with no cases of Covid-19 in the community, the habit had dwindled.

On June 22 the number of registered businesses recorded 572,333 scans.

That number increased to 894,288 by June 24 following the day-before announcement of the Covid-positive case who had visited Wellington the weekend prior.

Epidemiologist, Professor Michael Baker told 1 NEWS he has always advocated mandatory scanning for high risk events.

He cites the example of a person going to the dairy as "low priority" scanning.

"We are really concerned about venues that could become super-spreading events," he says.

"You don't need to mandate it for every indoor environment but the alternative is trying to trace people without any record." 

Baker says the Covid-19 infected tourist from Sydney who visited Wellington over the weekend "packed in a huge number of indoor events in a short space of time," potentially infecting hundreds of close contacts.

The tourist is supected of having the Delta variant of the virus, but this is yet to be confirmed.

"But so few people scanned in so now we have this [lockdown] situation," he says. 

"Exhorting people to scan in has not worked," Baker points out, saying it leads to situations where there is "no ability to contact trace adding the Delta variant is very unforgiving".

"It's a failed model," he says. "Not the overall infrastructure but the human response side of it isn't working".

"It's not fit for purpose."