Victoria’s contact tracing weak link accused of ‘buggering up’ Australia’s early Covid response

One weak link in Victoria’s emergency Covid response was accused of “buggering up the country”, it has been revealed.

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Victoria’s contact tracing system was labelled as the weak link in 2020 with former Australian chief medical officer Brendan Murphy reportedly saying it was “buggering up the country” in the early days of the pandemic.

Plagued, a new book by The Australian’s Simon Benson and Geoff Chambers, has alleged that Murphy told then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison that the system was bad and it was putting the whole country at risk.

The assessment came right before New South Wales and other states chose to close their borders to Victoria.

The book’s authors also claimed that Murphy believed the tough business lockdown in Victoria was unnecessary and that more businesses could have kept operating with proper processes in place.

However, he acknowledged that some state chief health officers wanted a stricter approach, including Victoria’s Brett Sutton, whom he described as “the most hawkish”.

Premier Daniel Andrews would later admit that Victoria was “swamped” by the first wave of Covid and spent millions of dollars trying to fix the system, which continued to be plagued with issues despite his claims it was of a gold standard.

Originally published as Victoria’s contact tracing weak link accused of ‘buggering up’ Australia’s early Covid response