At the risk of sounding like an armchair expert, isn't it possible that NSW's contact tracing team is doing a better job because, you know, they haven't had many cases to trace? Isn't every state just one bad decision or one stroke of dumb luck away from a tsunami of infections?

The bigger concern with this narrative of NSW being the gold standard is that people think they're living in some sort of COVID-immune bubble and that could lead to a false sense of security and complacency. But I guess if testing rates remain high that is reassuring.

This from epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre paints the picture: "She said NSW had kept up with contact tracing because it had a small daily number of cases for the past few months. But if that number spiked, the system wouldn't hold up."

"It's all about the volume of cases you've got to trace … not even the best resourced system will be able to keep up with contact tracing by writing contacts on a whiteboard and doing it manually, which is essentially what's been done everywhere, including NSW," she said.

So what does the PM mean when he says that NSW is the gold standard of contact tracing that all states should follow? That they have a more superior whiteboard? Better pens?