Coalition wants to introduce app within fortnight as part of pandemic ‘road out’ strategy but PM says easing of restrictions still many weeks away

This article is more than 5 months old

This article is more than 5 months old

Australia soon will adopt a sophisticated mobile phone app that tracks coronavirus victims and the people they come in contact with.

The federal government wants to introduce the app, now being used in Singapore, within a fortnight and will outline the plan to premiers during the next meeting of the national cabinet on Thursday.

It will be part of a broader strategy to point to an exit from the tough Covid-19 restrictions which have shut businesses and confined millions to their homes.

But the proposal will come with a warning that while the so-called “road out” is being considered, the federal government does not intend to travel on it for several months yet.

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Scott Morrison said in an interview on Tuesday evening that Australia had “put itself in a good position to be able to deal with what is a global calamity” but the battle was not over yet.

“Yes, we’ve had a good couple of weeks, but that does not a virus beat,” the prime minister told Sky News. “And that’s why we have many more in front of us before we could even possibly contemplate the easing of restrictions.”

It is understood that in a stepped program, governments will consider allowing construction and manufacturing companies to reopen, but will not be able to offer much hope for service industries.

The federal government wants to expand testing and tracing programs, upgrade the capacity to respond to localised outbreaks, and introduce the tracker app.

Singapore has reported a 20% take-up of the app, which people infected with Covid-19 use to alert health authorities of their movements and the people they come in contact with.

The federal government is aiming for a 40% take-up.

The high-tech device — in Singapore called TraceTogether — has been credited with the initial limiting of the spread of Covid-19 on the island, although other factors such as the opening of businesses dangerously early have reduced that progress.

While the app would be voluntary, its introduction could raise privacy issues and concerns it might later be used for surveillance.

Australia has so far had 6,400 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 61 deaths, according to the latest figures, published on Tuesday afternoon. The average daily increase in known cases over the past three days was 0.68%.

Morrison said the behaviour of Australians over the Easter long weekend had shown that people had been heeding the message about the need for vigilance.

“There’s got to be a reward for all of this great effort that’s going in, and there will be, but we’ve got to make sure that’s done at the right time,” he told Sky News.

In an interview with SBS, Morrison warned against “dangerous complacency”.

Prof Lyn Gilbert, the chair of the Infection Prevention and Control Expert Advisory Group that reports to the nation’s chief health officers, said the recent trends in the data were really encouraging, but she agreed that Australia needed to guard against becoming complacent.

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She said hospital admissions and deaths might increase even if new cases of Covid-19 continued to decrease in coming weeks. This was because there was a lag time between case notifications and deaths, as people might get sick, have relatively mild symptoms for a while and then deteriorate.

“The other warning, of course, is that there are still cases occurring,” Gilbert said in an interview. “And the only way they’re going to stay down and continue to fall is if everyone continues to do what we’re doing. What we’re doing is still continuing to do a lot of testing, to try to identify every case as quickly as possible.”

Gilbert added that once the downward trend seemed to be becoming more secure, there would probably be “some very cautious lifting of restrictions”, but patience was needed.