The Australian Labor government has scrapped the country’s troubled COVIDSafe mobile app, which was launched in a rush in April 2020 to help deal with the pandemic.
Estimated to cost $21 million (US$14.61 million) of taxpayer funds, the app has been criticised for performance issues and for only identifying 17 close contacts, according to new Health Minister Mark Butler, who called it a “colossal waste.”
“The former prime minister said this app would be our ‘sunscreen’ against COVID-19—all it did was burn through taxpayer’s money,” he said in a statement. “This failed app only found two unique positive COVID cases at the cost of more than $10 million each.”…