digital health solutions – Public Health Expert, University of Otago, New Zealand

Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Tim Chambers, Dr Amanda Kvalsvig, Dr Anja Mizdrak, Dr Nhung Nghiem, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Michael Baker

NZ has now achieved the lowest death rate from the COVID-19 pandemic out of 37 OECD countries and appears to be the only one to succeed with elimination at a national level. But despite the success of the “team of 5 million” – there are still a number of gaps in our defences. In particular, there is a need to upgrade: (i) border controls; (ii) the Alert Level system; (iii) the use of digital technologies to support contact tracing; (iv) testing & surveillance for early outbreak detection; (v) the kinds of policies, institutions and laws needed to sustain our world-class response.

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Dr Tim Chambers, Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Michael Baker

In this blog we discuss some of the emerging technologies New Zealand could adopt to support the country’s COVID-19 elimination strategy. We argue for the prioritisation of technologies to assist with contact tracing, border controls, early diagnosis and surveillance. These technologies present major benefits for the collective effort against COVID-19 and can also strengthen our preparedness for future pandemics. Nevertheless, they also present major challenges related to privacy, public acceptability and coordination that must be overcome if these innovations are to make substantial contributions to the pandemic response.

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NZ’s “Team of 5 million” has achieved the lowest COVID-19 death rate in the OECD – but there are still gaps in our pandemic response

We need rapid progress on digital solutions to help eliminate COVID-19 from New Zealand

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