Perhaps it's time the government used larger events to find if there's COVID-19 cases in the community.

I was reading the news article on the partying at Bondi Beach and whilst I'm not in favour of large scale gatherings in general due to the risk of COVID-19, particularly in hotspot areas, it did give me an idea.

Coronavirus live updates: Backlash grows over North bondi party (news.com.au)

In Victoria COVID-19 cases are currently zero in terms of community transmission. There may still be infected people that don't know they're infected and in time those people will infect others. Either that or there is really no community cases of COVID-19.

The idea that came to mind is if there are hidden cases of COVID-19, if we had large controlled events where people registered (think The Australia Open or football matches) then if a COVID-19 case did occur, the contact tracers could more easily trace where the case came from. Yes it does mean there is a risk of people getting infected, but if there's no cases in the community, there's no risk. If there are cases it's one way the government can find the cases and enable people to do what they want to do, knowing there's a risk involved.

Even a party at Bondi could be held as long as everyone who went registered. People would actually be helping the community by partying.

Perhaps it's time the government was a little more creative and looked for ways to give people more freedom rather than their current strategy of excessively removing freedoms.

Now it could easily be argued that to allow people to participate in risky activities should never be allowed, but we also have to remember in the early days of COVID-19, Queensland held two elections where millions of people turned out and not one case of community transmission was reported to my knowledge (although I'm happy to stand corrected). We can live in fear or we can look for ways where people can do more in a controlled way.

Kelvin Eldridge