Hand-written records, QR codes prove more useful than COVIDSafe app
The $16 million COVIDSafe app, which Prime Minister Scott Morrison had described as the "sunscreen" to coronavirus, has not identified any contacts linked to the Black Rock cluster.
There are more than 1200 people isolating as a result of the outbreak, and the Department of Health and Human Services has identified 90 exposure sites, but the app has not picked up any contacts who were not already identified by Victoria's contact tracing team.
The COVIDSafe app has not aided Victorian authorities with the latest outbreak.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
When the Commonwealth launched the app in April, it was marketed as Australia's ticket out of lockdown as long as everyone had downloaded it.
Despite all states and territories, except Victoria, successfully reopening their economies at the end of the first wave in May, the COVIDSafe app has failed to deliver on the federal government's commitment that it would help to stem outbreaks.
"If you want to go outside when the sun is shining, you have got to put sunscreen on. This is the same thing," Mr Morrison said in April.
During Melbourne's lockdown, while Premier Daniel Andrews conceded Victorian health authorities had "not received much data" from the app, he said it would be useful when restrictions were lifted.
"It will be much like sewerage testing – in fact identical really – it will come into its own when the community is out, moving around more because you will be spending time with people that you don't know," Mr Andrews said in late September.
On Wednesday, Victorian authorities revealed that a man who visited the MCG on day two of the Melbourne Test had since tested positive for coronavirus, making the venue a potential COVID-19 acquisition site.
There were about 8000 people in zone 5 of the MCG's Southern Stand on the day the infected man was there, Mr Weimar said.
The 30-year-old man also visited at least 10 stores at Chadstone shopping centre on Boxing Day, authorities said.
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