logging the interaction between two people and then making sure that you can respond quickly and protect people.”
SaferMe is based in New Zealand and is focused on businesses. At the start of the pandemic, the New Zealand government started providing SaferMe’s product free to all businesses in the country. Its tracing system played a large role in helping the country essentially eradicate the disease.
“If you get sick, imagine trying to remember all the people you’ve met with over the last four or five days,” Marrewijk said. “It’s easy to forget someone and if you’re coming into the office, you want to know there’s a professional system is in place and if someone gets sick, the right people are being isolated quickly.”
The technology works just like a key or swipe card you likely already use.
Marrewijk said the amount of data needed to do an efficient job isn’t that much, usually nothing more than which rooms or areas you might have visited.
And he says all of that data is encrypted.“So, if you were to lose the card, it’s a useless piece of equipment to anyone who’s trying to figure out what data is on there.”
What’s Next for New Zealand
New Zealand health officials said on Sunday (Jan 24) they were investigating what they said was probably the country’s first community coronavirus case in months in a woman who recently returned from overseas.
The 56-year-old, who returned to New Zealand on Dec 30, tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 days after leaving a two-week mandatory quarantine at the border where she had twice tested negative.
The woman who took a flight back to New Zealand was supposed to avoid all physical contact with others for 14 days as she went into mandatory quarantine. The man working at the quarantine hotel was supposed to be the last line of defense.
But the two started passing notes to each other, including one written on the back of a face mask. Then she ordered a bottle of wine, which he delivered to her room. When he didn’t return 20 minutes later, a security manager sent to investigate found the pair together in what authorities are describing as an inappropriate encounter, one in which physical distancing wasn’t maintained.