Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Your ethnicity could soon be recorded when you get a COVID-19 test. Would you be OK with that?

Your ethnicity could soon be recorded when you get a COVID-19 test. Would you be OK with that?

People's cultural backgrounds and the languages they speak could soon be recorded when they get a COVID-19 test, an "essential" move experts say will help governments respond to future outbreaks but should have happened much sooner.

The Health Department has confirmed it is "actively considering" capturing cultural and linguistic diversity data, cautioning it would only collect information in a way that is "useful and respectful".

Community leaders and academics have been pushing for data collection on ethnicity in the same way gender, Indigenous background and age are recorded.

University of Technology Sydney sociology emeritus professor Andrew Jakubowicz said the information was crucial.

"It's important to know if particular groups have been affected badly, it's important to know if groups have been missed out in testing regime," he said.


"It's important what networks exist in local areas and how that might help trackers get to the source.

"It also helps us know which groups are the most vulnerable because they haven't been caught up in the testing regime."

The consideration by the Health Department comes after criticism of the Federal Government for its handling of ethnic communities during the pandemic, with an expert panel warning earlier this year of a "missed opportunity" to protect at-risk groups such as migrants.

The ABC last week also revealed the Department of Home Affairs had used Google Translate in an effort to communicate with multicultural communities during the pandemic.

Ethnic minorities are among those at a higher risk of becoming ill from coronavirus and passing it on without realising because they are more likely to have a chronic disease and less likely to engage with public health messages.

Professor Jakubowicz said recording ethnicity would have been beneficial much earlier, when the pandemic began.

"I've been pushing for this since April and I think perhaps we would have done better in some of the situations in Victoria, in Melbourne in particular," he said.

"If we had been collecting this data early on, we would have become alerted to some of the patterns which have now become clear in retrospect.

The fact we're only discovering this later on rather than while it's happening is a fairly scary finding."



Multicultural communities in Melbourne were the origins of some of the first outbreaks in Victoria's second wave.


But Professor Jakubowicz acknowledged concerns about individual security and racism involved with data collection on ethnicity.

"It's one of the reasons governments have been worried about this — if the data is misinterpreted or used in ways that damage communities," he said.

The first outbreaks of the second wave in Melbourne's outer suburbs were in the homes of culturally diverse communities.

Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton later acknowledged the State Government had not always properly engaged with those groups.

Diversity consultant Tasneem Chopra said the information would also allow officials to target resources and better engage community leaders.

"If the data is indicating that there's one particular community group more so than others that's presenting itself as testing positive, this is an opportunity for systems and health service providers to be more creative in the way they're engaging," she said.

In a report issued in September by peak national multicultural body Federation of Ethnic Community Councils Australia (FECCA), it described the "diversity data deficit" in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic as an "omission of serious concern".

It also said the data would be "essential to inform targeted public health initiatives" to ethnic communities, while helping governments respond comprehensively to future disease outbreaks or pandemics.


Tasneem Chopra says the information collated from tests could mean service providers could engage more creatively with communities.


NZ already recording ethnicity


Countries like New Zealand are already recording ethnicity when testing for COVID-19.

Senior lecturer at the University of Otago, Lesley Gray, said it had been a valuable part of the country's pandemic response.

"It's important to monitor the health outcomes to achieve health equity," she said.

"It certainly helps us identify where people are acquiring the cases.

"In terms of our interest in health equity, we're already [asking] — although we've had a small number of people die from COVID 19 in this country — why are our Maori statistics so high?

"That's likely to relate to poorness, previous health experiences, colonisation, so we need to know how we can best protect our more vulnerable populations."

Taskforce set up to mitigate health impact


The Australian Government has also set up a taskforce to help it mitigate the health impact of COVID-19 for people from multicultural backgrounds.

It comes after "nonsensical" and "laughable" language translations of COVID-19 public health messages were distributed to multicultural communities, prompting fears migrants and refugees would lose trust in authorities' handling of the coronavirus pandemic.


Some of the Government's messages were poorly translated.


The Federal Government is still finalising the membership of the taskforce, but the ABC understands it will be headed by Lucas De Toca, the acting first assistant secretary of the COVID-19 Primary Care Response Team.

Dr De Toca currently co-chairs the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group on COVID-19.

A spokesman for the Health Department it was establishing the advisory group "in recognition of the challenges that some individuals and communities face in relation to public health interfaces and access to health services in the context of the pandemic".

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×