Michael McGuire: European Covid wave shows pandemic is far from over

Covid is coming but we’re on our way back to normal. It’s a contradiction but make no mistake, this pandemic is nowhere near over, writes Michael McGuire.

They are two inherently contradictory messages now on Covid-19.

One is that the disease is bound to make its way into South Australia once borders reopen on Tuesday. That once that happens there will be an unknown number of sick people and then deaths.

The second message though is that, in some ways at least, the worst is over. That South Australia is again open for business. Borders are reopening, visitors will arrive from interstate and overseas, vaccination rates are increasing. And anyway, we have done better than anywhere else, so why should we worry?

Life can return to normal. If anyone can remember what normal is anymore.

The desire to believe the worst of the pandemic is behind us is tempting. We are all sick of Covid. Of talking about it, reading about it, writing about it, fearing it. But this would be a bad time to become complacent.

This is a pandemic that has some way to run yet.

The last month in Europe provides a cautionary tale for Australia. Europe is again awash with Covid. Over the last month, Europe’s case numbers have increased by more than 50 per cent and the World Health Organisation is predicting there could be another 500,000 Covid-related deaths by February.

The WHO says there are two main reasons for the resurgence of the highly transmissible delta Covid variant. One is that vaccination rates aren’t what they should be. And secondly, the relaxation of public health and social measures such as mask-wearing in indoor, crowded areas. The WHO predicts that if 95 per cent of mask use was achieved in Europe and Central Asia, 188,000 of those 500,000 deaths by February could be avoided.

There is again a rush to improve vaccination rates across Europe.

Austria, which has double vaccinated only 65 per cent of its population, has this week locked down about 2 million unvaccinated citizens as it deals with the latest Covid surge. Vaccination rates across Europe vary from more than 80 per cent in Spain and Portugal, to 67 per cent in Germany and Britain, to 35 per cent in Russia.

Germany is dealing with a fourth wave of pandemic, driven mainly by its unvaccinated population.

“What we are experiencing is above all a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” the German minister of health, Jens Spahn, said earlier this month.

Police officers monitor compliance with the lockdown in Austria. Picture: Jan Hetfleisch/Getty Images

While being vaccinated does not stop you catching Covid, the hospitals, intensive care units, morgues and cemeteries are piling up with the unvaccinated.

Australia made a slow start in the vaccination stakes back when Scott Morrison declared it “wasn’t a race’’, but has moved swiftly since them. Around 83 per cent of Australians aged 16 and over are now vaccinated. In SA, the number is around 75 per cent.

The state’s chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier continues to urge those still unvaccinated to take the shot. There are some studies that suggest Covid won’t really be under control until vaccination rates top 90 per cent. More also needs to be done to help vulnerable communities lift vaccination rates.

But then we also have demonstrations such as the ones we saw in Melbourne last week that are so harmful and so perplexing. Apparently they are demanding “freedom’’, but it seems their freedom extends no further than their own selfish desires. Everyone else can get stuffed. It’s hard to believe these people are interested in anyone else’s wellbeing, or really have any understanding of medicine and science, when they are wandering the streets with gallows as props or backing the loopy QAnon conspiracy.

That the protests have been supported by some Liberal MPs from the shallow end of the political gene pool says a lot about the debased nature of much of the public debate.

But then again we have cops with little interest in public safety and medical professionals with little interest in public health who are prepared to sacrifice their jobs rather than take a vaccine, so we are living in strange times.

Reaching these hard core anti-vaxxers is not possible. Some people are beyond help. But there will also be the waverers, the unsure and the hesitant who can all be persuaded with the right arguments.

It’s going to take time but we will never truly to emerge from this pandemic until it happens.