For God's sake it's only $14M

Mike Harding · Guru

For God's sake it's only $14M

dorian · Guru

I would like to see the advice that the government received. I doubt that they made their decision in a vacuum. The other mistake they made was to choose Astra-Zenecca in preference to Pfizer, but who was to know? I think they were right to hedge their bets -- in both cases. No criticism from me.

86GTS · Guru

We were in uncharted territory back then, all sorts of mistakes were made in many different spheres.
Better to do something than nothing at all.

Whenarewethere · Guru

If it was the app based on phone distance to another phone using Bluetooth, it was never going to work as Bluetooth uses multiple signals & additionally every phones electronics is different so it's impossible to calculate distance.

Gundog · Guru

Dorian, the media in Australia done a hatchet job on AZ, but whay would I know the majority of Great Britian were vaxed with AZ.

Lets look at governments form when it comes to technology, contract tracing app FAIL, Then there was the Y2K scare campain BIG FAIL, and then we have the most expensive folly first started by good old Labor NBN FTTH, then the Libs tinkered with it by adding FTTN and NBN WiFi, and for the people way out bush you can have Sat NBN The whole NBN in all its versions is the GRANDADDY FAIL.

If maybe one or two people realy thought about NBN at it infancay they would seen it tobe an expensive Folly, Tony Abbott suggested WiMax as being a better lead in nation broadband network, because it would have been portable system rather than a static one, even now WiMax has been surpassed.

DMaxer · Guru

They had no choice but to support it Mike or they would have been wedged. It did not have to go through the Houses, it was just at the behest of Hunt and MM. More disgraceful was the recipient of this largesse.

Mike Harding · Guru

Dorian: if they had asked anyone who had the slightest knowledge of radio propagation whether they should chuck $14M at a new coven of witches in a Newcastle suburb who said that by dancing in circles on the night of a full moon they could cure covid or at a new Bluetooth app. we'd have all said "Well, the witches are worth a go but forget the Bluetooth thing."

Making mistakes is fine - I do it all the time - wanton stupidity is something very different.

dorian · Guru

Mike Harding wrote:
Dorian: if they had asked anyone who had the slightest knowledge of radio propagation ...

Whom should they have asked? That's what I'd like to know. If it had been my decision, I would have engaged those people in the CSIRO who were involved in developing wifi rather than some external contractor. Still, it beggars belief that the product's testing phase (?) didn't reveal its failings. Personally, I would go after the developers and make them refund the money. Their professional indemnity insurance should cover it.

From that BBC news item ...

"COVIDsafe was designed under the country's previous government which refused help from tech giants Apple and Google, whose contact-tracing system was adopted by more than 50 jurisdictions globally."

I wonder how those other contact-tracing systems fared?

Edit: Here is a recent study:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S246826672200010X

Despite implementation in many countries, little empirical evidence exists about the effectiveness of digital tracing apps.13, 14 Although two recent evaluations from the UK and Switzerland suggest that systems based on the decentralised approach might be able to provide some benefits to a country's COVID-19 response under specific conditions,15, 16 no evidence exists to date about the population-level effectiveness of centralised digital contact tracing apps.

There were 619 confirmed COVID-19 cases with more than 25300 close contacts identified by conventional contact tracing during the study period. COVIDSafe was used by 137 (22%) cases and detected 205 contacts, 79 (39%) of whom met the close contact definition. Its positive predictive value was therefore 39%. 35 (15%) of the 236 close contacts who could have been expected to have been using the app during the study period were identified by the app, making its estimated sensitivity 15%. 79 (0·3%) of the estimated 25300 contacts in NSW were app-suggested and met the close contact definition. The app detected 17 (<0·1%) additional close contacts who were not identified by conventional contact tracing. COVIDSafe generated a substantial additional perceived workload for public health staff and was not considered useful.

-- Edited by dorian on Friday 12th of August 2022 06:09:40 AM

Hitting the road · Senior Member

The whole absurdity of these colossal wastes of money and the massive toll on small businesses and families...was Political point scoring...nothing more.

The fools who made the decisions affecting all we tax payers...were just that...fools. The mere fact that the most infectious a person is with this man made manipulated virus is before they even know they have it....maybe it was designed that way, who knows as the records and information pertaining to the creation of the super virus were destroyed to bury all evidence.

Are We Lost · Guru

dorian wrote:
<snip>
Despite implementation in many countries, ......

I am just focusing on that part of the snipper that Dorian posted. The fact that it was implemented in many countries means many people thought it was a good idea. Calling all those decision makers fools is foolish.

We are now looking back on that period with the benefit of hindsight. The app was released in late April 2020, just three months after the first case was detected in Australia. So its development would have been commissioned in the infancy of the pandemic at a time when we knew very little about the virus. W.H.O. was telling us that the incubation period was a lot longer than we understand now. And the original strain DID have a longer incubation period. At that time, W.H.O. was still recommending not to close borders.

By the time the app was released, there were howls from some as to why Australia was slower at introducing such an app than other countries. Any attempt to reduce the number of cases was worthwhile. On the other side, there was a lot of negativity about it, fueled by scare campaigns mainly about invasion of privacy. How many members on here chose not to install it?

Part of the reason for its lack of success was the poor uptake by the community. If its installation rate had been higher I believe it would have had a reasonable benefit. I would certainly liked to have known that I had been sitting near someone who subsequently tested positive, so I would then take precautions and avoid passing it on. Even if it only caught a percentage of close contacts, some is better than none.

Hindsight is great.

dorian · Guru

From the outset, Mike voiced his objections on technical grounds. I have almost no experience in RF, but Mike apparently does. It seems to me that this software failed for technical reasons rather than poor uptake. In fact the authors of the study were only able to speculate, not prove, that poor uptake (22%) may have been the cause. I don't believe any of them were engineers, although all had either a PhD or MD. I didn't read the report in any detail, but there seemed to be scant mention of the technical aspects of the digital tracing system. It seems that the authors had not considered this possibility.

DMaxer · Guru

We will all find out why this happened, together with a myriad of other payments to all the old mates just as soon as ICAC is up and running next year.

Are We Lost · Guru

The BBC article does not go into any detail about the technical deficiencies. I recall at the time the issue mentioned in the BBC article that Apple devices would not work unless they were actively being used. There was some discussion about whether Apple could issue an update to address that. But even without Apple, the benefit still stands that any interactions captured could still save lives. If $14M could have saved a few lives, was it a good decision to try?

At the time of it's release Australia was reporting about 15 new cases a day, and it was almost another 18 months before the numbers climbed above 1,000 a day. There was pretty small chance that an infected person was near you. So any warning of being close to that person would have been helpful.

A question to Mike .... I have no expertise in such technical matters, so perhaps you could clarify what the limitations are that you refer to. Is this primarily due to the difficulty in estimating distance apart? On that basis it would report some contacts at greater than the risk distance while missing some closer. Again, back to those early days would not some indication be better than none? Maybe a bit like the unreliability of the current RAT results.

I am developing a smart home system based on a Raspberry Pi (a small $100 computer). It has bluetooth built in and can detect a nearby phone within seconds (does not need to be paired). What it does not do, and I assume the same as the Covid app, is to estimate distance. It probably could report signal strength but that is not an accurate indicator of distance.

-- Edited by Are We Lost on Saturday 13th of August 2022 01:59:57 PM

Mike Harding · Guru

Are We Lost wrote:
Hindsight is great.

As Dorian has pointed out, thank you, I am not exercising hindsight - I was very clear over two years past, when it was released, that this app would not work.

Look at this thread (to which you contributed):

Original thread

In a response to Cupie I explain why it won't work and in other responses I detail its further failings.

In uncontrolled environments with a single point RF energy source and a single point receiver it is impossible to accurately determine distance between source and receiver.

Are We Lost · Guru

Thanks for finding that old thread. In there you refer to measuring 1.5M distance. I know that has always been the social distancing measure, but I was not aware it had any relevance in the CovidSafe app. We have since learned that just being in the same large room as an infected person can result in catching it and it can be spread by the air conditioning.

I have no idea if the app attempted to measure that distance, and agree that would result in significant inaccuracy. Maybe it ignored weak signnals .. don't know. But if the app counted any detection for the measured amount of time (15 minutes?) that did mean you were reasonably close to the other person. Close enough to get infected? We don't know. But at that time, anything that improved our chances was worth trying. Science did not know if there was a safe distance anyway. Still doesn't because of all the variables. But it's certainly more than 1.5 metres.

Wearing masks helps, vaccines help, social distancing helps, sterilising surfaces helps, contract tracing helped. None are a guarantee but they all add up to help ward off infections. So I saw CovidSafe as another in the arsenal. Not perfect for sure, but it could have helped if more people had installed it.

In fact, I would still like to know if I had been exposed to an infection. For example, would you like to know that someone on the train carriage had it, or someone at the restaurant? It may help you to decide not to visit family that next weekend.

If the countries that tried this had instead decided not to try it, how many would be criticising that choice. "It's only $14M to potentially save lives." A drop in the ocean compared to all the other spending because of the virus.

-- Edited by Are We Lost on Saturday 13th of August 2022 06:00:56 PM

Mike Harding · Guru

Are We Lost wrote:
Thanks for finding that old thread. In there you refer to measuring 1.5M distance. I know that has always been the social distancing measure, but I was not aware it had any relevance in the CovidSafe app. We have since learned that just being in the same large room as an infected person can result in catching it and it can be spread by the air conditioning.

I have no idea if the app attempted to measure that distance, and agree that would result in significant inaccuracy. Maybe it ignored weak signnals .. don't know. But if the app counted any detection for the measured amount of time (15 minutes?) that did mean you were reasonably close to the other person. Close enough to get infected? We don't know. But at that time, anything that improved our chances was worth trying. Science did not know if there was a safe distance anyway. Still doesn't because of all the variables. But it's certainly more than 1.5 metres.

Wearing masks helps, vaccines help, social distancing helps, sterilising surfaces helps, contract tracing helped. None are a guarantee but they all add up to help ward off infections. So I saw CovidSafe as another in the arsenal. Not perfect for sure, but it could have helped if more people had installed it.

In fact, I would still like to know if I had been exposed to an infection. For example, would you like to know that someone on the train carriage had it, or someone at the restaurant? It may help you to decide not to visit family that next weekend.
If the countries that tried this had instead decided not to try it, how many would be criticising that choice. "It's only $14M to potentially save lives." A drop in the ocean compared to all the other spending because of the virus.

Right! I get it!

You're saying that if it had worked it would have been good and helpful - unfortunately it didn't work and never could so, therefore, it was crap.

Which I think is what I said two years and more ago.

Are We Lost · Guru

No not quite. I believe that as it was delivered it would have had benefit if more people had used it. If Apple had released an update to that would have made quite a difference. Then add further refinements to help it along.

Less useful now because of the shorter incubation periods, otherwise I could see benefits (as per my second last paragraph).

Anyway, it's done and dusted. So am I with the subject.

Mike Harding · Guru

Are We Lost wrote:
Anyway, it's done and dusted. So am I with the subject.

As you should be.

Tony LEE · Guru

All these armchair experts and second, third and fourth-guessers really should have come forward with their self-proclaimed expertise 2 1/2 years ago. Or maybe it is just as well nobody took any notice of them at the time, or since All things considered, all our leaders, both state and federal, took the best advice available on the day and did a bloody good job under impossible circumstances. But maybe I'm biassed. Mid 70's, double vaxxed, double boosted and neither of us has contracted covid.

Mike Harding · Guru

Tony LEE wrote:
All these armchair experts and second, third and fourth-guessers really should have come forward with their self-proclaimed expertise 2 1/2 years ago.

Read the thread Tony... I did - but you all knew better than experts in electronics.

DMaxer · Guru

When your good mate had at least five ministries to run it was always likely that a mistake or two might happen Mike.

I think before we blame anyone we should determine who the minister was. There were at least two at the one time I understand. biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin

-- Edited by DMaxer on Wednesday 17th of August 2022 11:03:41 AM

Craig1 · Guru

biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin biggrin
You seem to try and bring politics into every thread Craig. If it is not in the jokes section where you recycle some ancient joke by inserting a new name it is in general posts. Your side got belted and thrown out on their ear. All that awaits them is ICAC. You have to let go and move on my friend.

When your good mate had at least five ministries to run it was always likely that a mistake or two might happen Mike.

I think before we blame anyone we should determine who the minister was. There were at least two at the one time I understand.

Well done D Max

-- Edited by Craig1 on Wednesday 17th of August 2022 01:22:26 PM

DMaxer · Guru

Thank you for your appreciation Craig. I think a lot of good will come out of todays press conference. The best thing I think will be a recording of it will be compulsory viewing in the curriculum of any person studying psychology or psychiatry and specialising in psychopaths. I will leave it there I think.

oxleigh · Veteran Member

Gundog wrote:
Dorian, the media in Australia done a hatchet job on AZ, but whay would I know the majority of Great Britian were vaxed with AZ.
Lets look at governments form when it comes to technology, contract tracing app FAIL, Then there was the Y2K scare campain BIG FAIL, and then we have the most expensive folly first started by good old Labor NBN FTTH, then the Libs tinkered with it by adding FTTN and NBN WiFi, and for the people way out bush you can have Sat NBN The whole NBN in all its versions is the GRANDADDY FAIL.
If maybe one or two people realy thought about NBN at it infancay they would seen it tobe an expensive Folly, Tony Abbott suggested WiMax as being a better lead in nation broadband network, because it would have been portable system rather than a static one, even now WiMax has been surpassed.

Please don't mention tony abbott in public, what a moron, he was only in the public eye for his own benefit, just like all has-been politicians, they are has-beens because they were not working in the Australian interest, paul cheating and others are as useless as a hip pocket in a singlet as far as looking after Australia's interest.

Why do we keep quoting their lousy names, sco mo has joined the ranks of self interested politicians. notice no capital letters have been used in their names, they have not earned the respect of everyday hard working Australians. We have been sold out to china and now we will pay the price, in less than 5 years we will have a big yellow star on the corner of our flag.

-- Edited by oxleigh on Wednesday 24th of August 2022 11:31:53 PM

Craig1 · Guru

I'll take your 14 and raise it to $30 million

Gundog · Guru

oxleigh wrote:

Please don't mention tony abbott in public, what a moron, he was only in the public eye for his own benefit

I feel sorry for you being so bitter and twisted particually to a man like Tony Abbott, he served our nation not only as an MP and Prime Minister by as a Lifesaver, Volunteer Fireman who stood shoulder to shoulder with other Fireman fighting bush fires, yes at the end of a hose or a fire rake or beater. Spending many hours giving his time supporting charities. Go to some of the remote aborigional communities where he spent time understanding their wants and needs, without a news TV crew hanging around to pump up his persona.

There is more about Tony Abbott than what the moronic leftie media present.

oxleigh · Veteran Member

Gundog wrote:
oxleigh wrote:

Please don't mention tony abbott in public, what a moron, he was only in the public eye for his own benefit
I feel sorry for you being so bitter and twisted particularly to a man like Tony Abbott, he served our nation not only as an MP and Prime Minister by as a Lifesaver, Volunteer Fireman who stood shoulder to shoulder with other Fireman fighting bush fires, yes at the end of a hose or a fire rake or beater. Spending many hours giving his time supporting charities. Go to some of the remote aboriginal communities where he spent time understanding their wants and needs, without a news TV crew hanging around to pump up his persona.
There is more about Tony Abbott than what the moronic leftie media present.

Bitter and twisted might be but not without some reason with evidence. Read all the papers and use common sense as to what is happening.
Notice there is no mention of all the politicians who have sold out Australia by letting the chinese buy their way into all the pacific islands and our ports, and our other infrastructure, they are positioned to blockade Australia, look at all the businesses they have poured money into in this country, when they released Corona and then asked their development company employees in Australia to buy up sanitiser and masks that they could and ship them back to china, it is on record and after a public uproar the govt decided to restrict exports. The same with the islands that have been financed by china, the govt, too late, decided to pay back some of the extortion money back to china on behalf of the islanders, everyone knew what the chinese were up to but our government did not and let it happen until the general public woke up to them. You only had to go on pacific cruises to see the problems.Not to mention the national parks that have been locked up by chinese interests, and the caravan parks on the south coast that have been bought and have told permanent residents 3 months to leave.
Taiwan first then Australia next.
No matter what these ex politicians get up to privately it's what they do when they are in power for the long haul that counts, they are still ex politicians, if they were any good they still would be in their jobs.
It's dangerous just to judge them just by some good deeds and not the person as a whole as far as looking after the country.

Mike Harding · Guru

oxleigh wrote:
Please don't mention tony abbott in public, what a moron, he was only in the public eye for his own benefit

Around the Rudd/Abbott time there was a saying:

"Those who don't like Tony Abbott haven't met him --- Those who like Kevin Rudd haven't met him"

Whether one agrees with Abbott's political position or not he has always seemed to be a decent man to me.

DMaxer · Guru

Knighting Prince Philip was an absolute highlight Mike. If it wasn't for the dope we just punted he would go down as one of the worst we have ever had.

Mike Harding · Guru

DMaxer wrote:
Knighting Prince Philip was an absolute highlight Mike.

Why was that wrong Dmaxer?