Calls to scrap major Covid rule: 'No longer effective'
An infections disease expert has suggested ditching QR code check-in systems in NSW insisting they're "no longer considered effective".
Professor Robert Booy said while it "hasn't been pointless," the check-in system has "served its purpose" but "its time is coming to an end."
"It has enabled outbreaks to be found earlier, it has enabled people to report, to do that contact tracing," he said on Sunrise this morning.
"Now it's too big a task and it's no longer considered effective. So it served its purpose, but I agree that its time is coming to an end."
Fewer people using QR check-in systems
The system has been used across Australia since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Speaking to Yahoo News Australia last month, a Service NSW spokesperson said NSW residents are required to check-in whenever they enter hospitality, retail and other high-risk venues such as gyms, hospitals or aged-care facilities to assist with contact tracing by NSW Health and to help keep the community safe.
In NSW, QR code check-ins were made voluntary for a short period of time before they were reintroduced on December 27 as the outbreak of Covid cases worsened.
But now, Professor Booy said it's no "secret" there are fewer people using it and there's a "new approach", and that's trying to get "as many people vaccinated as possible".
"How can we naturally get people to behave with social distancing, wear masks indoors," he continued. "It's becoming a more natural approach rather than a mandated approach."
It seems other experts agree with Professor Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, suggesting check-in systems "are only as useful as how well they are used by the general public”.
Last month, Dr James Trauer from Monash University’s Epidemiological Modelling Unit, told Yahoo News Australia QR code check-ins could still be useful.
“My view is that we should keep everything we have in place while we're right in the middle of this current major wave, which is clearly a major crisis,” Dr Trauer said.
“Just having a record of where you've been on your phone could be useful if you hear about a major super-spreading event at a venue that you may have recently attended, even though that would be infrequent.”
Change to Covid-19 rules
If approved, NSW residents could see an end to scanning their phones when entering cafes, pubs, clubs and restaurants as early as February 28.
NSW will also see an end to wearing masks indoors as former deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth tweeted on Tuesday he thinks “the tide has turned on masks”.
In NSW, mask mandates for indoor settings will last until at least February 27 and are set to be dropped on March 1.
They will, however, remain in Queensland, and Victoria hasn’t made any moves to drop the mask mandate either.
In NSW, there were 10, 463 Covid cases recorded overnight with 1,478 hospitalisations. While in Victoria, a total of 8,149 cases were recorded.
Two weeks ago, NSW was recording more than 11,000 cases a day while cases in mid-January were almost triple that number.
Banning parents from schools is 'over the top'
Parents in Victoria who haven't had their vaccine booster shot face being "banned" from school events.
But Professor Booy said the move is "over the top and unnecessary" and it "won't help" limit covid cases in schools.
"Keeping parents out of events perhaps is a little bit over the top and unnecessary given that we have so much in the way of children being close to each other anyway," he said.
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