Carl D wrote on Apr 7
th, 2023 at 7:37am:
lol.. (but not funny really).
https://twitter.com/WAGovernment/status/1640232997055090689 Quote:You can now pick up free RATs at Bunnings Cannington and Midland during opening hours.
Stop by the entrance/exit to pick up your free RATs over the next two weeks.
Free because the WA government bought 2 million dollars worth of them ages ago and they're now about to expire so they would rather have the public dispose of them and save themselves the time and expense of doing it themselves.
They've also been handing them out for free in some of the shopping centres here over the past few months. Places like Red Dot that were selling them for
$10 for ONE test less than 6 months ago must have been a bit embarrassed (I see they've stopped doing that now).
Of course hardly anybody wanted them anyway after the government bought them because... well, nearly everyone believes the pandemic is over and Omicron was/is "mild". At least that's the message we've had from our governments and the media over the past 12 to 18 months.
And they're probably useless for detecting the latest variants in circulation (not that RAT's were/are very reliable to begin with).
Crikey... it was worse than I thought - I'm not sure where I got the $2 million figure from, actually.
COVID RAT strategy criticised by WA auditor-general after cost soared to almost $600 million 
Quote:The WA government has been slammed for the way it managed the purchase of rapid antigen tests at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a report finding there was no "clear, considered and coordinated" plan.
In her report released today, Auditor-General Caroline Spencer said the rapid escalation in cost to $580 million in total was unlike anything she had ever seen.
She said what started as a $3 million spend on tests for health workers and returning travellers quickly spiralled beyond $440 million, "around twice the cost of the Bunbury Hospital redevelopment".
"Public entities spent the equivalent of 10 per cent of the state's 2022 operating surplus on diagnostic plastics without demonstrable evidence of clear, considered and coordinated planning or ongoing advice as to the necessity of the expenditure," Ms Spencer said.
No wonder they've been giving them away by the truckload in shopping centres, Bunnings and other places.
Quote:Deputy Premier and former health minister Roger Cook said the government had made difficult decisions when there was no rulebook about how to handle the pandemic.
"[We] understood that having an abundance of rapid antigen tests was a key way that we could continue to protect peoples' health [and] save lives, while we were dealing with the onset of Omicron and as it made its way through the community as we opened up our borders," he said.
"You sit back and you reflect on those decisions and you think, my God, I'm just so pleased that we made them in the way that we did because it protected lives and in addition to that, protected Western Australia's economy."
What happened to the "protected lives" part after WA's border opened in March last year? Over 1,000 West Australians have died from Covid since then.
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