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The place did all of it go improper?
How did Australia go from being the envy of the world with our greatest observe public well being measures, low case numbers, a ready well being system and an financial system ticking alongside properly to what can solely be described as a shambolic mess?
The one instance Australia is offering to the world now’s a warning about what to not do with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Testing, tracing, isolation and quarantine, the so-called “TTIQ” together with air flow and improved air high quality of indoor areas had been important components of the response.
We thought the federal government would develop a strong technique for the months and years forward after our 2021 lockdown. The federal government wanted to heed sensible, skilled public well being consultants, epidemiologists and clinicians.
Whereas vaccines had been, and stay, an essential a part of the response, we had been warned to not depend on vaccines alone.
As time glided by, our warnings had been confirmed appropriate because the Omicron variant emerged and the virus contaminated the vaccinated and unvaccinated, selecting off the medically susceptible, immunocompromised folks and kids.
We realized that two-dose vaccine immunity was solely momentary and {that a} third dose or a “booster” could be wanted. Even that’s more likely to wane inside months.
Lengthy Covid stays a danger, even in “gentle circumstances”, and even when persons are vaccinated.
With the brand new New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, in cost, the chief well being officer Kerry Chant was sidelined as the brand new coverage to “let it rip” was rolled out.
15 December 2021 was a pivotal second within the pandemic.
The inhabitants was softened up with a false narrative that “Omicron causes gentle illness”, “this may very well be the present we have now been ready for”, and “this might finish the pandemic.”
Maybe probably the most insidious piece of messaging was the pronouncement that “everybody in Australia goes to get it”. In different phrases, why trouble attempting to forestall transmission?
In a single beforehand unimaginable act, the premier, in a double act with Scott Morrison, introduced a lifting of all restrictions together with necessary masks carrying and QR code check-ins.
Regardless of the warnings that the well being system was underneath stress and that occasion season was about to kick off, the message to the neighborhood was: “Go on the market and spend, head to the pub and get again to regular.”
In the meantime, Covid-infected NSW residents had been anticipated to do their very own testing, contact tracing, and residential Covid care.
“Private duty”, they stated.
As the vacation interval approached, many testing amenities could be closed down with little warning, resulting in queues stretching for kilometres and ready instances blowing out to hours. In some circumstances, ailing folks waited of their vehicles in a single day. Outcomes had been taking 5 – 6 days to be reported.
It ruined Christmas for a lot of, who couldn’t get a end in time for 25 December.
As case numbers exploded, every week after they had been eliminated, QR codes and indoor masks carrying had been reinstated – however the horse had bolted.
We had been all instructed to go and get speedy antigen checks (RATs). The federal government resisted offering the checks totally free because the UK had achieved, with Morrison saying he “didn’t need to undercut companies”.
When a journalist particularly put to him that “not everybody can afford speedy antigen checks”, the PM casually replied: “Some folks can, some folks can’t.”
In one other throwaway remark that won’t age effectively, he stated: “We’re at a stage of the pandemic the place you simply can’t make every little thing free.”
I believed that was why we had a public hospital system, public well being models, Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Advantages Scheme – in order that fundamental healthcare is inexpensive and accessible for all. That is precisely the stage of the pandemic the place affordability shouldn’t be a barrier to illness management.
The minimalist method to pandemic management has damage companies greater than it has helped, with many cancellations at eating places and hospitality venues. Supermarkets are actually fighting provides as a result of staff at each stage of the provision chain have gotten ailing.
In the meantime, final yr’s rest room paper wars turned this yr’s RAT wars as restricted provides of that valuable commodity flew off the cabinets at typically exorbitant costs. Many who’re ailing with Covid have self-diagnosed with a RAT however haven’t undergone PCR testing. These numbers are invisible to official case counts.
Residents are being instructed to not name 000, to not attend hospital, and to take care of themselves if they’re 65 or underneath and have Covid.
Folks on restricted incomes have been left to fend for themselves, with out even fundamental residence care plans or recommendation on testing, air flow and masks.
Medicare is meant to supply a fundamental degree of well being care to all Australians. That features prevention and public well being initiatives.
If the federal government needed to restrict PCR checks, they might have supplied each PCR and RATs on the testing websites relying in your state of affairs. Cash could be saved and we might nonetheless have a deal with on the caseload in the neighborhood and enterprise would have fared higher.
The federal government ought to have procured and offered Covid preparedness kits to be delivered to individuals who check constructive so they might monitor their situation at residence.
In the meantime, there’s no nationwide speedy antigen check technique and the federal government has had loads of discover.
Within the remaining days of 2021, nationwide cupboard was by some means satisfied to conform to a redefinition of a “shut contact” as an individual in the identical family as a Covid case for greater than 4 hours. There is no such thing as a science behind this transformation of definition: the proof reveals quarter-hour is the time it takes to get contaminated.
We’re instructed by our leaders not to have a look at the case numbers, and to have a look at hospitalisations and ICU admissions as a substitute. In the meantime, hospitalisations and ICU admissions are escalating and plenty of who would usually be handled in hospital are being instructed to handle their situation at residence.
“Letting it rip” won’t finish the pandemic, nor will it assist enterprise or the financial system. “Letting it rip” won’t flip this into an endemic illness with herd immunity. There will probably be one other wave of one other variant.
Within the absence of management from the federal government, folks might want to more and more look to credible medical management, as political leaders inform Australians to take issues into their very own fingers.
Stopping transmission is our solely method out of this.
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