Parts of Auckland may not be in lockdown now if National was in charge - Dr Shane Reti

August 23, 2020

National's health spokesperson outlined how the party would handle the Covid-19 pandemic if elected.

National's health spokesperson Dr Shane Reti is touting the idea of "more sophisticated" Covid-19 lockdowns.

Dr Reti told TVNZ1's Q+A this morning some had called Auckland's current Alert Level 3 restrictions "a postcode lockdown". He's calling for more targetted and "advanced" regional lockdowns if Covid-19 cases emerge.

"It's just not clear to us that the very wide swathe of Auckland that was taken out, for example all the way down to Pōkeno, that that stands up to the evidence, that maybe we've just matched a response to what was a council boundary rather than to areas that we could really work with," he said.

"For example, could we move that Pōkeno boundary further north, past Waiuku, maybe past the heavy industry at Glenbrook Steel, etcetera, and still be effective.

"We're looking for a more sophisticated targeting rather than maybe what we have."

The new policy includes establishing a ‘New Zeeland border Protection Agency’.

If he was health minister now, Dr Reti also said he would make contact tracing easier by using Bluetooth, whether it be in the form of a Covid card or in smartphones, alongside the Government's Covid Tracer app.

"We think Bluetooth is another tool that we can and should add to that toolbox."

The Bluetooth contact tracing would be compulsory for frontline staff and people returning to New Zealand, he said.

Dr Reti's comments today come after National proposed it would establish an overarching border protection agency to improve testing and quarantining processes for people arriving back in New Zealand.

Under a National Government, returnees coming back into New Zealand would also be required to test negative for Covid-19 before flying in.

Mr Reti said he was pleased with New Zealand's response to Covid-19 so far, but that it was a "nasty" and "tricky" virus and there were areas to improve the official response to it.

However, when pressed by Q+A host Jack Tame, he wouldn't comment on whether or not he would lift Auckland out of lockdown this coming week, without having all the data.

The party's health spokesperson says the economic consequences of Covid-19 re-emerging in New Zealand have been "massive".

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