Thread by @TimWattsMP

In a cracking story, The @canberratimes has obtained a damning report on Scott Morrison’s bungled CovidSAFE App.

The Doherty model, & the PM’s reopening plan, relies heavily on ‘optimal testing, tracing, isolation & quarantine’.

Given that, this report is a must read 🧵👇

Some highlights of the report’s findings.

The report was finalised in March 2021, so doesn’t include the Delta out breaks.

But it’s clear that the CovidSAFE app was completely useless to contact tracers in the Victorian second wave.

It didn’t find a single close contact.

This was shortly after Scott Morrison described the CovidSAFE app as providing ‘protection’ like ‘putting on sunscreen’.

The report was clear that the technical limitations of the way that the government decided to built the app meant that it was ‘not able to be used effectively’ register contacts in unstructured environments like spectator events.

Meanwhile, the Health Minister was telling Australians this:

The report paints a damning picture of the app’s efficiency, with more than half of the tiny amount of contacts that it did register ‘false close contacts’ that wasted the time of contact tracers.

Meanwhile, even after the government received this report, Stuart Robert was telling Australians this:

Most damningly of all, while the Doherty Report’s modelling relies on ‘optimal testing, tracing, isolation and quarantine’, this report, completed in March of 2021, tells the Morrison government that it’s “crucial” to explore options to improve the CovidSAFE app’s performance.

Instead, as usual, instead of action we get more spin from the Morrison govt.

Even when optimal TTIQ is crucial to the delivery of the Morrison govt’s safe reopening plan, against all evidence to the contrary, they still won’t even concede that the app needs to be fixed.

It’s no wonder that after rushing the release of the CovidSAFE App, the Government delayed undertaking a legally required review into its effectiveness by 15 months then refused to release it to the public canberratimes.com.au/story/7351322/…

You can read the report here: scribd.com/document/52193…

You can read the @canberratimes excellent story here: canberratimes.com.au/story/7405628/…