New data-sharing system to address Victoria's contact tracing woes
A new national data-sharing system will tackle flaws in contact tracing that have plagued Victoria's COVID-19 response, with delays in communicating positive test results and potential exposures hampering efforts to suppress the latest outbreak.
Victorian health authorities, along with those of all other states and territories, will now have to provide clear data about the time between tests being taken and results delivered and how long it takes to contact the hundreds of people testing positive each day, and their close contacts.
Victoria has called in military support for testing and contact tracing. Credit:Getty
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said after Friday's national cabinet meeting that more "comprehensive" data sharing was "necessary to ensure that we are collectively aware of what is occurring in all the states and territories and that we're picking up at the earliest possible opportunity where there may be some vulnerabilities."
The announcement comes two weeks after The Age and Sydney Morning Herald revealed Victoria's contact tracers had become so overwhelmed that people were waiting weeks to be told they may have been exposed to COVID-19 through close contact with a confirmed case.
Mr Morrison said states at Friday’s national cabinet meeting had agreed to swap information "as to what's the best way to run a testing and tracing regime".
"While there is some better news today out of Victoria, that is not something that we can assume will continue," he said.
"We must maintain the full force of effort in Victoria ... We need to continue to have the right controls in place to test more people, trace those who test positive and respond to local outbreaks."
The prime minister said national cabinet had reaffirmed its commitment to the suppression strategy, putting to rest calls from some medical experts to pursue elimination of the virus - but characterised the goal as achieving "no community transmission."
"There will always be cases that come because Australia has not completely shut itself off from the world," Mr Morrison said.
Acting Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly said the success of Australia's suppression strategy would depend on "how aggressively we need to chase down every case, every day, to ensure that they are isolated, to make sure that the contacts of every case are also contacted themselves, and where necessary, be tested and isolate as soon as possible."
Federal authorities were "really pushing hard" to make sure "very granular information" was shared by states and territories in a timely fashion, he said.
"That will ... guide the public health response where it's needed, and particularly to guide what sort of supports can be put from other states and territories, from the ADF and other resources, where we are in that situation as is occurring in Melbourne."
Details of time frames between tests being done and results being delivered must be provided regularly by all states and territories "to make sure that that testing regime is remaining as it should be", he said.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said on Friday that "phone tag" between contact tracers and people who tested positive to COVID-19 delayed the relaying of test results in about a quarter of new cases. He said health authorities would draw upon the Australian Defence Force and the federal health department support to ensure the message got through.
"The aim is to have every single one of them contacted within 24 hours," Mr Andrews said.
Mr Andrews said federal and military contact tracers would help ensure that, if a person did not answer the phone, a follow-up call would be made within two hours, and those who repeatedly failed to answer would find ADF personnel "knocking on your door [and] bringing the public health response to you."
There are now 1400 ADF personnel assisting with Victoria's COVID-19 response.