Was COVIDSafe App an expensive dud?

Scott Morrison says the Government app is “doing its job”.

Remember that app that Scott Morrison said will be the “key to our freedom”?  Well, it hasn’t really done anything manual tracing wouldn’t have done.

About 6.6 million Australians have downloaded the app, but while data from the app has been accessed about 300 times, it hasn’t actually found new contacts unknown to health officials.

Labor didn’t let this go unnoticed of course.

Former Labor Leader and Shadow Government Services Minister Bill Shorten canned the app “an expensive dud” while Shadow Health Minister Chris Bowen said it was a “$2 million mistake”.

PM digs in against criticism

The good news is Scott Morrison said the app “technically” works.

“It’s doing its job,” he said on Triple M.

“It was never supposed to be in isolation to replace physical tracing. Technically, it’s working fine.”

Mr Morrison conceded physical tracing was always going to do most the work at tracking down the new cases.

“It’s supposed to work in combination with the physical tracing that is done by contact officers – the two go together,” he said.

 “It’s doing its job but it was never supposed to be in isolation to replace physical tracing. The physical tracing is quickly identifying a lot of the contacts.”

Further COVID-19 news on SoPerth.com.au.