Australian app fails to locate single new case

THE Australian government has admitted that its Covid-19 contact-tracing app has not identified a single contact not already known as the country recorded its highest number of daily new cases since April.

In the state of Victoria 75 new cases were recorded in 24 hours, making up the vast majority of the 85 new infections recorded across the entire country.

Jenny Mikakos, the state’s health minister, said the latest cases were “overwhelmingly concentrated” in 10 suburbs of Melbourne, the state’s capital, which had been identified as community transmission hotspots. The rise marked the 13th day of double-digit increases in the number of coronavirus cases in the state, whose tally since the pandemic began now stands at 2,099.

Australia has fared better than many countries in the coronavirus pandemic, with around 7,800 cases and 104 deaths, but the recent surge has worried experts and led the authorities to suggest that strict social distancing regulations could be reintroduced.

Brett Sutton, Victoria’s chief health officer, said nothing was “off the table” in regards to possible measures to get the health crisis under control. “I think it will get worse before it gets better,” he warned a media conference.

The surge in cases has come as the Australian government has been forced to admit that its AUD $2million (£1.1million) Covidsafe app, which has been downloaded by six million people, has not yet uncovered a single contact who had not already been found by its manual contact tracing teams.