Shifting Goalposts
Victoria’s onerous and constantly shifting targets for easing restrictions dash any hopes for a full recovery this year.
Victoria has had one of the hardest and longest lockdowns in the world. The introduction of a curfew came out of left field, with little evidence it was expert-informed or evidence-based.
Lockdown has been devastating to morale and mental health. GPs and specialists are worried about delayed treatments, increased eating disorders and skyrocketing anxiety and depression.
Businesses have been devastated. Victoria’s 25 per cent contribution to Australia’s gross domestic product is likely to be shredded, particularly if retail and hospitality can’t get back to work on October 19 as originally hoped. The last eight weeks of the year account for up to 60 per cent of annual earnings for many in the hospitality industry.
Our hopes for a full recovery in Victoria this year are fading at the hands of Daniel Andrews. It can be difficult for those not living through the Melburnian lockdown to understand the depths of despair felt by many.
The Victorian government has been going it alone for months. Last month the national cabinet agreed to a definition of a COVID hotspot for Australia: a rolling average of 10 locally acquired new cases a day across three days.
Despite being party to that agreement, Andrews independently announced he would set a higher bar for Victoria. For restrictions to begin to be lifted on October 19, he is demanding a 14-day rolling average of less than five new cases a day. Further restrictions will be lifted on November 28 only if there are no new cases for 14 days. These targets are too hard and too harsh. They are also highly unlikely to be achievable this year.
Experts predict the first target may take three months or more to achieve. The second target may never be achieved while COVID continues to rage overseas. A tantalising hope for elimination has been attached to when (and if) a safe and effective COVID vaccine becomes widely available, something the federal government predicts we won’t see until the latter half of next year at the earliest.
Indeed, World Health Organisation coronavirus special envoy David Nabarro recently urged governments to stop using lockdowns as a primary control method. “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources; protect your health workers who are exhausted,” Nabarro said. “But by and large we’d rather not do it.”
The WHO has been consistent in recommending effective testing and tracing, and good public health messaging to gain community confidence in strict personal hygiene and physical distancing measures and support for hospitals — not endless lockdowns. It recommends the best strategy for COVID containment as “test-trace-isolate-protect services everywhere, with clearly justified performance metrics”.
Victorians have accepted significant hardship as we’ve worked to bring Australia’s first outbreak of community transmission under control following the monumental breakdown in the Andrews government’s hotel quarantine program. This has been a gargantuan effort that started poorly, with less than ideal testing and tracing.
However, through renewed effort, the government has lifted its tracing game. A Victorian team was sent to NSW to look at best practice and more resources have been thrown at the problem, including accepting personnel assistance from federal and other state governments. Thankfully the Victorian system finally is moving on from archaic manual processing to digitalisation, which will improve effectiveness and efficiency significantly.
The good news is that Victoria has reached the rolling day average of less than 10 cases in the past 14 days. This is in line with national cabinet targets. The bad news is the Premier appears to be doubling down on his targets. When a crisis becomes chronic, balanced judgment can be a casualty.
NSW has managed to live with COVID outbreaks using strong testing and tracing and clear public health messaging. So should Victoria now that it has lifted its game. The Victorian public has been remarkably compliant with mandatory masks and physical distancing measures. The R0 (infectivity ratio) is finally less than 1, which means the downward trajectory of COVID cases will continue. There are no cases in the intensive care units of hospitals in Victoria. It is time for Andrews to give back people’s freedom.
COVID has been with us for months. We have had a proper chance to look at how it has behaved in virtually every country.
The Premier should step back and contextualise the full and unintended consequences of the actions he is taking on behalf of millions of Victorians. Reopening business, especially retail, hospitality and construction, in a COVID-safe way should be the highest priority. These sectors successfully managed it after the first lockdown. They are ready to reactivate this approach.
But it seems the Premier is gunning for elimination. His recently resigned health minister, Jenny Mikakos, appeared to let this intention slip in the dying days of her ministership. If that is indeed the case, it comes as a direct contradiction to current expert advice including from the WHO.
The cost of elimination as a goal in the absence of a vaccine is too great. We are already paying a heavy penalty for Andrews’s mistakes. Perhaps he should consider taking a break from his marathon 100 days of press conferences so he can get some perspective. Heavens knows Melbourne and Australia are counting on it.
Katie Allen is the federal Liberal member for Higgins and a former paediatrician and medical researcher. This article first appeared in The Australian.
Watch Katie Allen discuss the collectivist philosophy driving Victoria's disastrous COVID-19 policy.