{"id":260326,"date":"2021-08-02T10:37:58","date_gmt":"2021-08-02T10:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationaus.com\/?p=20712"},"modified":"2021-08-02T10:37:58","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T10:37:58","slug":"covidsafe-report-missing-the-one-thing-that-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/08\/02\/covidsafe-report-missing-the-one-thing-that-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"COVIDSafe report missing the one thing that matters"},"content":{"rendered":"
Like the villain in a bad horror movie, COVIDSafe refuses to die.<\/p>\n
It has been a staggering fall from grace for the contact tracing app, heralded as the “ticket” out of lockdown by the Prime Minister in April last year, when he also compared it to putting on sunscreen.<\/p>\n
COVIDSafe has since become a running joke at state government press conferences and typifies the federal government’s approach to shortcomings in its response to Covid-19: Shift blame, block information and avoid apologising.<\/p>\n
There have been many issues that could have led to the end of the app, including numerous technical issues and bugs discovered by diligent local developers. The steadfast refusal by government to adopt the Google and Apple protocol for digital contact tracing which ahs been widely used around the world might have provided a good reason to abandon it.<\/p>\n
And the fact that it has only identified 17 new close contacts in the near-18 months since it was launched perhaps should have spelled doom for COVIDSafe.<\/p>\n
Government ministers don’t mention the COVIDSafe name publicly these days. And while it has all but disappeared from public view, the government has nonetheless refused to concede that COVIDSafe has failed to deliver on its huge promise.<\/p>\n
And even now it is still not being transparent about the effectiveness or otherwise of the app. The government has done the public a huge disservice by not being upfront about performance issues.<\/p>\n