COVIDSafe app to be available in Arabic, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese

The COVIDSafe app will be updated to operate in five additional languages to help more Australian residents confidently use the app.

Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, said the latest update to the app, which will be available to download tomorrow, 3 July, will add five of the most commonly spoken languages in diverse communities in Australia.

‘These changes offer an improved user experience for more than 1.5 million Australians who speak Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and Vietnamese,’ Minister Hunt said

‘As part of our commitment to supporting multicultural communities, we have also translated fact sheets and posters into 63 languages and had over 5,200 engagements with different multicultural communities and leaders, including more than 900 in Victoria.’

‘We will continue to explore the inclusion of additional languages for the app and help topics in future releases.’

Minister for Government Services, Stuart Robert, said the latest update to the COVIDSafe app will allow people to download and use the app in their own language.

‘This will be the sixth update to the app and help topics,’ Minister Robert said.

‘We strongly encourage people using the COVIDSafe app to install this update and benefit from these improvements.’

Acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs Alan Tudge said Australians, regardless of their background, were going out of their way to keep themselves, their families and their communities safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘I would like to recognise our multicultural communities who have been terrific in supporting us in getting the messages out there,’ Mr Tudge said.

‘Multicultural communities, just like all Australians, have been playing their part to ensure that we can flatten the curve and continue to be world leading in our response to the coronavirus.’

More than 6.5 million Australians have downloaded and registered the COVIDSafe app helping to quickly stop the further spread of the virus in the community.

All Australians are encouraged to download the COVIDSafe app, to enable swift notification by health authorities in the event of exposure to COVID-19.