Thursday, May 07, 2020

Why is Morrison's flim flam figure not attracting more attention?

Apparently, at the Senate yesterday, it was revealed that Scott Morrison (who I think is getting too much credit for his leadership on Covid-19)  was pulling figures out of the air when it comes to the matter of allegedly needing 40% of the population using the government's tracking app for it to be effective:
Multiple senators in the committee also questioned the 40 per cent of the population download target that has been touted by several government ministers, including health minister Greg Hunt and Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who have also regularly linked the uptake of the app with the ability to ease social restrictions around Australia.

But acting health department secretary Caroline Edwards said this target was not provided by her department, and no modelling has been done to reach this figure.

Ms Edwards and the other departmental officials backed away from this target, saying that any increased uptake of the app is a positive.

This led to a fiery encounter between the officials and Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick who was baffled by a lack of analysis on usage and the app’s effectiveness, suggesting the government hadn’t done its “due diligence”

“You’ve done modelling on the spread of the virus but it seems extraordinary to me you haven’t done modelling on uptake versus usefulness,” Senator Patrick said.

“That will come from some statistical analysis – you need this amount of uptake in order to get this result. Have you done analysis on that? It’s part of the fundamental design of any application. I have an engineering background and I’m looking for quantifiable analysis.”

Ms Edwards said that 40 per cent target had not been provided by the Health department and was not being used by the department.

“Every single upload of this app and use of it is useful to help our health authorities do their work. I’d take one, I’d take 10 per cent and if it gets to 40 per cent and beyond I’d be delighted,” she said. Every upload and use is a benefit. The more people who use the app, the better data we have to assist that process,” she said.

“That 40 per cent number is meaningful to many people. We’re not aiming for a particular number.”
Don't get me wrong - I support the use of the app.

But this is an example of Morrison being an advertising flim flam man that is not being highlighted by the media, as far as I can see.

Update:   I didn't see this before I wrote the post - an opinion piece at WAPO saying Morrison doesn't deserve as much approval as he is getting for Covid response.


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