Australia's CovidSafe app was scrapped just two years after its costly launch by its predecessor Scott Morrison, It was branded as a "failure". government.
On Wednesday, Health Secretary Mark His Butler urged people to remove the application, calling it a "colossal waste of over $21 million in taxpayer money."
The CovidSafe app was launched by former Prime Minister Scott Morrison in his 2020 at the peak of the pandemic. Morrison said it's "as essential as applying sunscreen."
The app cost him AU$21 million (£12.2 million) to be created, rolled out and hosted by the government, and a manual contact tracing system was used by the surrounding Covid Designed to help identify infections.
But the app only succeeded in identifying two positive infections that he did not find with manual contact tracing, Butler said.
Also in New South Wales, he identified 17 close contacts, none of whom were identified by manual contact tracing methods.
"The app has clearly failed as a public health measure, which is why it was taken down," the minister said.
This app was full of technical issues.iPhone users had to keep their phones unlocked at all times, bug issues, and the fact that users had to actively give permission to their data. Add and use.
Experts also question the effectiveness of Bluetooth-based tracking methods, which do not work in most cases.
The app will be officially retired on August 16th, but was updated Tuesday night to remove all features. When users open the app, they will now see the message "Please uninstall CovidSafe".
According to the Albanian Anthonygovernment, the last upload date for data to the CovidSafe app for citizens is May 2021, and the data store will be accessed by state authorities in 2022. Is not ...
However, the app continued to operate at a running cost of approximately $75,000 in taxpayer money each month. Developing the app cost him about $10 million, advertising and marketing cost him $7 million, and staffing cost him over $2 million.
The Australian government will move to her QR code and check-in app for contact tracing in 2021 after restrictions are eased. Experts expected the technology to be integrated into the app at the time. But it didn't.
An analysis published by the Lancet Public Health journal found that CovidSafe caused extra work for contact tracers and made no meaningful contribution to Australia's Covid response. concludes.
