Scott Morrison says Joe Biden asked him for the secret to our success

Scott Morrison will send US president-elect Joe Biden a copy of the newly released National Contact Tracing Review.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaking beside Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkle and Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture :Sean Davey

Scott Morrison will send US president-elect Joe Biden a copy of the newly released National Contact Tracing Review, which the Prime Minister said “tells the story of why Australia is being successful” in suppressing the coronavirus.

“We will copy that to the US administration as well, but given president-elect Biden’s interest in this issue and the people he’s bringing together there, he was very keen to know what we were doing,” Mr Morrison said.

He also said that lead report author, chief scientist Alan Finkel, “and his colleagues would be able to assist, whoever, wherever they are in whatever country, to learn from Australia’s experience”.

The report, which was commissioned following a national cabinet briefing by Dr Finkel and Commodore Mark Hill in September, recommended that states commit to faster COVID-19 testing and notification systems.

It said test results should be made available within 24 hours and potential contacts notified within two days of the test.

Mr Morrison holding a copy of the National Contract Tracing Review. Picture: Sean Davey

The report described the then current national target to alert close contacts within 48 hours of a positive result as “inadequate from the point of view of suppressing community transmission”.

In a press conference alongside the Prime Minister on Friday, Dr Finkel said: “I can tell you it was a very thorough review, even though time was short”.

He stressed the review was “not a scorecard” to rank the relative effectiveness of jurisdictions’ testing and tracing systems. Instead, it was a best-practice guide developed following consultations undertaken across the country through October.

“Perhaps the overriding conclusion from our report is that there is good reason to be confident in the contact-tracing and outbreak-management systems in Australia,” Dr Finkel said.

Australia’s Chief Scientist did say, however, that Victoria’s system, which was criticised heavily during the early phases of that state’s second wave of cases, was “really working quite well now”.

“It (Victoria’s contact-tracing system) obviously was under incredible stress and not working well three or four months ago,” he said. “But it has actually dramatically improved.”

The review also recommended a digital-exchange system be set up between states to allow state and territory health officials to share contact-tracing information in a more efficient manner.

Communications between jurisdictions were done via phone calls and emails —– “a practice that would not withstand high case numbers,” the report noted.

With interstate borders now expected to be fully open by Christmas, barring Western Australia, Dr Finkel said the states needed to be “confident that they can share information about people who are travelling from jurisdiction to jurisdiction”.

“At the moment the problem is not manifest. We don’t have a serious issue, but we need to be preparing. So we’ve recommended a very light-touch digital exchange mechanism,” he said.

Mr Morrison said he had been invited to share the report by Mr Biden during their telephone conversation on Thursday.