Page38 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 2 December 2020
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individuals’ details once entered are designed to lead to a higher adoption rate of the app and use at venues.
The ACT government has offered to share the app with other states and territories to support their contact tracing capabilities. This has now been taken up by the Northern Territory and Tasmania, who launched their own versions on 24 and 26 November, with support from ACT officials.
The Check In CBR app has also been praised by the Commonwealth Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel AO, as an effective mechanism to assist our contact tracing team to have easy and fast access to contact tracing data, in the event it is required.
Dr Finkel was commissioned by the commonwealth government to undertake the national contact tracing and outbreak management review, which has reviewed systems and operations in all jurisdictions, with the aim of strengthening capacity and capability to effectively test, trace and isolate COVID-19 and ensure that our health systems are prepared. I am pleased to advise that the ACT was more broadly assessed as having strong contact tracing and outbreak management systems in place.
The review identified areas for continuous improvement and preventative public health measures for all jurisdictions in the areas of workforce and training; stress testing; end-to-end contact tracing; data exchange; outbreak management; technology systems; and community engagement. Like every jurisdiction, we will continue to refine and test our processes and strengthen our capacity to respond to any local outbreak.
Specific plans are in place to guide the management of outbreaks in a range of high-risk settings, including aged care; disability settings; corrections settings; high density housing settings; and primary care settings.
In addition to Dr Finkel’s review, at the request of National Cabinet, the commonwealth commissioned the National Review of Hotel Quarantine, which examined hotel quarantine management, structures and operations across all jurisdictions except Victoria. ACT officials engaged closely with this review, which was conducted by Ms Jane Halton AO PSM.
Hotel quarantine is a primary mitigation strategy for controlling the spread of COVID-19 from any arriving international traveller who may be infected into the wider community. The national review report found that hotel quarantine has proven largely effective as a first line of defence against the importation of COVID-19 and is a necessary response to protect the community until a safe and effective vaccine is available.
I am pleased to advise that the ACT’s quarantine program was assessed as suitable against the recommendations. The ACT was commended in several areas, including our focus on mental health and wellbeing support for persons in quarantine. There were also some areas identified for all jurisdictions, including the ACT, that we have worked on to further strengthen, in line with the best practice identified by the review. This includes making information about quarantine clear and easily accessible;
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