Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly states the COVIDSafe app was created with mass gatherings in mind, but fears there has actually not been a huge enough take-up for it to be reliable following the Black Lives Matter demonstrations.
Key points:
- It is not understood the number of protesters at the Black Lives Matter presentations had the COVIDSafe app on their phones
- The demonstrations copped criticism from Matthias Cormann, who identified them “selfish”, “self-indulgent” and “careless”
- More than 60,000 Australians participated in rallies in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne
Demonstrations involving countless individuals occurred in a host of major cities around the country as protesters rallied against police cruelty and required an end to deaths of Aboriginal people in police custody.
Protesters rallied in Canberra on Friday, ahead of more than 60,000 Australians taking part in rallies in the nation’s 3 biggest cities, with Brisbane drawing in the biggest crowd of about 30,000 people.
Health authorities at both state and federal level urged versus partaking in the protests, saying it might undo months of work containing the spread of coronavirus in Australia.
Professor Kelly said the Federal Government’s contact tracing app would be “ab