Media Update, page-216

@dguru88
Yes, that's right, ABC article today actually refers to your point, economics that are driving constant stream of folks arriving in Australia, which always means there is risk of infection - even if testing was done on national scale, like Slovakia did..

23 Dec'20 - Could mass testing for COVID-19 prevent Australia's next coronavirus lockdown?
_{https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/mass-testing-for-covid-19-wont-prevent-another-lockdown/12962908}

I agree with the article that it would be a waste of resources + time to mass test whole AU pop - one time - since we have medical evidence that infection is only present in certain suburbs-city-state locations. And it makes the well known point that testing (of any type) doesn't prevent getting infected tomorrow...even a gold std lab test doesn't give any future coverage..its only good up to the moment the sample was taken.

What the article however seems doesn't seem to explore/explain is what situations are rapid tests could actually useful for - like in the Bill Gates' tweet above you had posted - it seems to tie RDT usage to mass national tests for hotspot countries...and then abandon the 'time based' idea for anything in Australia, just because we don't have a widespread infection rate.

What is the point of allowing AU or foreign companies to develop reduced time/high accuracy RDTs, setup minimum regulation criteria, review-approve-regulate them for Australia markets...but then same time keep insisting such tests really have no purpose here?