[LINK] Victoria Accessed COVIDSafe Data 21 Times But Couldn’t Identify Any New Contacts

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

Victoria Accessed COVIDSafe Data 21 Times But Couldn’t Identify Any New
Contacts
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/06/victoria-covidsafe-data-16-times-no-new-contacts/
*Sarah Basford <https://www.gizmodo.com.au/author/sarahbasford/>*

Published 1 month ago: June 10, 2020 at 11:10 am -

Victoria’s health authority has accessed data from the COVIDSafe app for
21 coronavirus cases but it is yet to identify a single contact manual
tracers hadn’t already uncovered, Gizmodo Australia has learned.

Australia’s contact tracing app, COVIDSafe, has been available for
nearly six weeks with 6.2 million users downloading and registering with
it but as we’ve previously reported
<https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/05/covidsafe-data-use-coronavirus/>,
health authorities around the country have had little use for the app’s
data so far. This can be attributed to Australia’s slowing infection
rate but a relatively low uptake of the app and crucial issues with its
functionality
<https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/05/apple-google-update-covidsafe-contact-tracing/>
also forms part of the equation.

*COVIDSafe data has been accessed 21 times in Victoria*

Gizmodo Australia now understands Victoria’s Department of Health and
Human Services has accessed the COVIDSafe data of 21 coronavirus cases
after the people registered with COVIDSafe had provided the department
with permission to access their contacts.

Every one of those cases’ contacts, however, had already been identified
by the department’s manual contact tracing team.

“Victorian public health officials have begun using the new COVIDSafe
app to help find close contacts of people who have tested positive,” a
spokesperson for the department said to Gizmodo Australia in a statement.

“With only a small number of cases in Victoria, there have been few
opportunities to use the app so far — and we hope this continues.

“We urge Victorians to download the app to augment our contact tracing
tools to stop the spread of the virus. This will be increasingly
important as restrictions are eased further and people are more mobile.”

According to an ABC report
<https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-20/covidsafe-app-victoria-health-authorities-first-use-coronavirus/12265286>,
Victoria was the first state to confirm it had used the app’s data for a
single patient on May 18 — 22 days after the app’s release. It’s
understood while an initial contact was identified by the app that
manual tracers couldn’t uncover at the time, it’s since been ruled out
as it didn’t fit the criteria of a “close contact”.

With few cases appearing elsewhere around the country, it remains one of
two states known to be actively using the data
<https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/05/covidsafe-data-use-coronavirus/>
with NSW admitting to accessing it less than a dozen times, according to
the Australian Financial Review
<https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/states-leave-covidsafe-app-untouched-amid-flattened-curve-20200609-p550us>.

The app’s limited usage by health authorities doesn’t mean it’s a
failure but it does show that it’s had little success in achieving its
primary purpose, at least so far. The government initially touted
COVIDSafe as a “major tool”
<https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-greg-hunt-mp/media/covidsafe-new-app-to-slow-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus>
for streamlining contact tracing and strongly encouraged Australians to
download it
<https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-australian-parliament-house-08may20>
so restrictions could be eased.

*Victoria’s manual contact tracing team grows to 1,000 “disease detectives”*

Just weeks earlier, the department confirmed it had 1,000 people trained
in manual contact tracing and were equipped to handle any outbreaks
faced in the state.

“We’ve grown our contact tracing team from less than 60 people to more
than 1,000 disease detectives who quickly chase up confirmed cases,
isolating anyone who has potentially been infected to slow the spread of
coronavirus within the community,” a DHHS spokesperson said in an email
to Gizmodo Australia at the time.

There have been 11 new cases of #coronavirus
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/coronavirus?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
in Australia in the last 24 hours. For more information about the
current situation, go to: https://t.co/ZIVz7VYHYn
pic.twitter.com/Y6hVExkDUq <https://t.co/Y6hVExkDUq>

— Australian Government Department of Health (@healthgovau) May 30, 2020
<https://twitter.com/healthgovau/status/1266690331182919680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

While the rest of Australia has remained relatively free from major
outbreaks in recent weeks, Victoria had continued to experience small
outbreaks during May, with 13 cases being recorded from a single cluster
in Keilor Downs
<https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/coronavirus-update-victoria-31-may-2020>.

"Update: This article was originally published on June 3, 2020 but has
been updated with the latest figures and the DHHS’s clarification on an
earlier unidentified contact."

-- 

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
email: brd at iimetro.com.au