Prime minister urges New Zealanders to keep a record of their movements ahead of decision on Monday on whether to ease restrictions

Jacinda Ardern asks New Zealanders to keep diaries to help trace coronavirus contacts

A day out from a decision on whether to relax New Zealand’s coronavirus clampdown, Jacinda Ardern has asked people to keep a diary of their daily movements, to help with contact tracing.

“I would ask New Zealanders to think about doing that. Just keeping a quick note of where you’ve been, and who you’ve been with,” Ardern said. “It will not only help them, it will help us.

“If you imagine, even asking someone six days later to account every movement over a period of time, it’s an incredibly hard task. So I would ask New Zealanders to have new practices, new things that they do at the end of the day.

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“The better that we are able to do ... the sooner we can move through the down the alert levels and the sooner life feels more normal,” she said.

On Monday, the cabinet will meet to decide whether to end four weeks of level-four restrictions and downscale to a level-three lockdown.

That will include reopening schools, allowing more businesses – including the construction and forestry industries – to get back to work and let restaurants operate for delivery orders only.

It will also allow New Zealanders to expand the bubble of people with whom they have personal contact, which presents a challenge for contact tracing.

Contact tracing is the process by which health officials track down people who have been in contact with confirmed cases of Covid-19, asking them to self-isolate and get tested.

Just as in Australia, officials are hoping to use a tracking app to assist the process, along with diary entries.

On Sunday, health officials announced just nine new cases across the country, the eighth straight day in which new cases have been no higher than 20. The country’s death toll stands at 12, after the death of a man in Invercargill last Tuesday was confirmed to be linked to Covid-19.

In keeping with the country’s health-first approach, Ardern announced four criteria that would decide whether the country would relax its restrictions, with none related to the economy.

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The first is the satisfaction of health professionals that undetected community transmission is unlikely. The second is strong contact tracing capacity, the third is the strength of border controls and the the fourth is the health system’s ability to stand up.

“Our focus has been to protect the health of New Zealanders,” Ardern said, while acknowledging the hurt in the business community.

“The best thing for the economy has been to stop the virus. But I do want to say thank you to a very special group ... small business owners and operators. Nobody underestimates how hard this situation is for all of you.”

The New Zealand government has paid out more than US$5.4bn ($NZ9bn) in wage subsidies to businesses, representing more than 1.5 million people, to date.