COVIDSafe app didn’t find contacts

The federal government’s COVIDSafe app failed to uncover contacts of COVID-19 cases in the recent holiday outbreaks.

An iPhone with the COVIDSafe app. Picture: AAP

The federal government’s COVIDSafe app did not uncover contacts of COVID-19 cases in the recent holiday outbreaks.

This period includes the South Australian Parafield outbreak starting in mid November, clusters in NSW on the Northern Beaches and Berala, and community transmission cases in Victoria.

The Australian contacted each state and territory to find out the usage of the app.

In NSW a health spokesperson said experience to date in NSW had shown that the COVIDSafe app may be most useful where interviews with contact tracers have not been successful in identifying contacts. “To date, it has not been necessary to use the app in these latest clusters,” the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Victoria said that from 14 November, out of the 14 cases that had the app, it identified zero new contacts through the COVIDSafe data.

A Queensland Health spokesperson said the app had been used twice since the pandemic began to complement contact tracing efforts and there has been one contact identified through the app to date, and no positive cases. Both these occasions were pre-October 2020.

A South Australia health spokesperson said: “The Communicable Disease Control Branch are able to access data from the COVIDSafe app to assist with contact tracing, however so far this hasn’t been activated in positive cases we have had in South Australia.”

Other jurisdictions had no community cases to trace using the app. “During this period WA has not had any community transmission. No contacts have been identified through the COVID Safe App,” said a spokesperson for the WA Department of Health.

The COVIDSafe logo. Supplied.

Similarly Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT didn’t have community transmission cases to trace in that time frame.

That doesn’t mean the app is useless. According to information from late last year supplied by the Office of Government Services Minister Stuart Robert to The Australian, the app proved useful earlier in the pandemic.

“NSW has successfully accessed the COVIDSafe app 98 times to identify 80 close contacts, including 17 contacts that were not identified by manual contact tracing,” it said.

“In one instance, their access to COVID App data revealed a previously unrecognised exposure date from a known venue (Mounties). This resulted in the identification of an additional 544 contacts. Two people in this group presented for testing and were subsequently confirmed to have COVID-19.

“Victoria has now fully integrated app usage into their contact tracing processes, and more than 1,800 people with COVID-19 have agreed to transmit their app data to public health authorities,” the federally-supplied information said.

“Victorian health officials are actively utilising the COVIDSafe app to verify close contacts identified.”

The app was originally marketed to the public as one of the main pillars in the Federal Government’s response to COVID-19 and the government still wants the public to download it as it can supplement the information available to state health authorities.

“The Australian Government continues to encourage Australians to join the more than 7.28 million people (that) have downloaded and registered for the COVIDSafe app.

“Ongoing upgrades to the technology behind the app, including Bluetooth are also assisting and everyone is encouraged to make sure they have the latest version.

“Importantly, the app works on people being within 1.5 metres of each other. It is effective where people are not social distancing and are in close proximity for 15 minutes.”

Questions remain. The app may have been downloaded by 7.28 million people, but how many actively open the app daily? Checking in at venues with QR codes seems to be becoming more the norm. And should the COVIDSafe app strictly adhere to the 1.5 metre rule given the existence of aerosol transmissions of longer distance?

The Australian reported late last year that technology solutions provider Delv had been awarded $4 million more for developing the COVIDSafe and coronavirus information apps.

Delv’s contract has been amended twice since the original $1.84 million allocation in March 2020.

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