Talking COVID-19 tracing apps on ABC Brisbane and the Gold Coast

Part of a diagram by epidemiologist @MarcelSalathe & designer @NCasenmare explaining how contact tracing works to slow the spread of an infection. Image is in in the public domain (CC0 1.0).
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison is ramping up the pressure for Australians to use a COVID-19 contact tracing that that hasn’t even been written yet — and more importantly hasn’t even been shown to be something that’d be useful in the first place.

Even though the use of any such app in Australia is still weeks away, Morrison has been talking up its importance, even describing volunteering to use it as a national service. Yet there’s at least five ways a tracing app could make things worse.

I’ve spoken about these issues on radio three times so far, but this morning’s chat with Kate O’Toole on ABC Brisbane and ABC Gold Coast was the most comprehensive. Here’s the whole segment, which includes a few audience members phoning in.

This audio is ©2020 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.