Downloading COVIDsafe app a fair price to pay as part of a national coronavirus insurance policy

COVID-19 is still rising internationally, as this compendium of measures from yesterday's Johns Hopkins coronavirus dashboard shows.

AS the numbers of new coronavirus cases in Australia slow to small and manageable numbers, there is a growing hope that we are on the journey out of COVID-19 danger.

By any estimate - and with all respect to the 95 people, at last count, who have lost their lives to the virus - we have done extraordinarily well by international comparison.

The Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard is still adding more than 80,000 cases a day.

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Australia and New Zealand are among just a handful of countries to have quickly arrested their infections with a textbook inverted V-shaped curve.

At last count, Australia had 6823 cases and 96 deaths, putting us at 48th place on the global tally board, well down from the 18th position we found ourselves in when the virus took hold.

New Zealand, with 20 deaths from 1487 cases, is in 82nd position from 186 nations reporting the virus.

This joint success has led to planning for a proposed resumption of international flights across the Tasman, with NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Adern due to take part in today's National Cabinet hook-up to discuss the proposal.

Rigorous testing and contact tracing have been key to arresting the spread of coronavirus domestically, which is why Prime Minister Scott Morrison is asking Australians to download the COVIDsafe app, a position endorsed by the Newcastle Herald and its publisher, Australian Community Media.

If other nations were as far advanced as Australia and New Zealand in their coronavirus control, then such a tracking device might not be necessary.

But the Johns Hopkins dashboard shows that of 89 nations with more than 1000 cases of coronavirus, 36 are still seeing their numbers rising, and in many cases rapidly.

Another 24 nations have case curves that are more or less level, or declining only slightly.

Only 29 nations are clearly on the downside of their infection curves.

With no real sign of the virus being under control, globally, for a considerable time, the more people who download COVIDsafe, the more confident our decision-makers can be in phasing out the restrictions that have helped restrict Australia to a numerically mild dose of coronavirus.

Those who fear a creeping invasion of privacy can always delete the app when the crisis passes. In the meantime we should all do our bit to help keep ourselves, and those we interact with, safe.

ISSUE: 39,597.

UNWANTED CHART POSITION: Russian PM Mickhail Mishustin, who stood down from his job last week after being diagnosed with COVID-19. Russia now has the seventh highest case total, and its numbers are rising rapidly, with more than 145,000 cases on Sunday, with a record 10,000 new infections added that day. More than 1350 coronavirus deaths have been officially recorded.

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