Scott Morrison cops flak from Dr Stephen Parnis on The Project over Australia’s RAT race

Scott Morrison’s handling of the latest case surge has come under fire on The Project by an emergency doctor who called on him to “stop playing games”.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has continued to cop flak from the medical community over the nation’s ongoing rapid antigen test bungle.

Shortages have seen the single-use tests skyrocket, with service stations and appliance stores among those criticised for gouging prices in a crisis.

Mr Morrison remained adamant rapid antigens, which are currently fetching up to $30 per swab, should be sold by retailers and not be provided by the government as Australia’s demand for tests hits fever pitch.

Melbourne-based emergency physician Dr Stephen Parnis said the highly infectious Omicron variant was putting “enormous strain” on the healthcare system as holidayers rush for tests before seeing family.

“It is different this time, absolutely because we have such an infectious variant of the virus, it is spreading like wildfire,” he told The Project on Tuesday.

“Thankfully it is a less severe variant. So in the health system we're seeing huge demands on testing centres, on emergency and community-based healthcare, but even though there are fewer severely ill patients, it is putting enormous strain on the whole system.”

While the variant is indeed less severe than 2021’s Delta wave, Dr Parnis said the ballooning case numbers could still see hospitals inundated with more patients than they can handle. Things like ambulance call-outs and increased waiting times in emergency departments could be stretched to dangerous levels if hospital numbers continue to rise.

“I doubt we'd see one single event that says we're in big, big trouble,” he continued. “I think what we would see is progressive delays. Inevitably the longer that those times blow out, the more likely an adverse outcome something like an avoidable death.”

Dr Parnis said he was concerned about state officials falsely claiming their healthcare system was not under pressure, reminding the pandemic is still a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence and will continue to push the nation’s healthcare response to the limit.

The exponential spread of the Omicron variant has seen eastern states obliterate previous daily case records over the holiday break. Worrying new data out of the University of Copenhagen has also suggested fully vaccinated individuals are 2.7-3.7 times more susceptible to catching Omicron than they were to Delta.

Shortages have seen the single-use tests skyrocket, with service stations and appliance stores among those criticised for gouging prices in a crisis.

Packed queues are a common sight across capital cities as panicked Aussies rush to get results amid the latest case boom.

“I don't think the New South Wales health system is strong and going strong. I think it is facing challenges that have never been seen in my lifetime,” he said.

“We need to be honest to keep people's confidence and trust in place. I think government definitions have a place, you know, you can redefine close contacts and I think that's not unreasonable at the moment, but I don't want to see redefinition of what a hospital case means because the impact of any Covid case is huge.

“You can't redefine a problem out of existence or minimise its impact. We've got some hard weeks in front of us, but I take comfort in the fact that as a nation we've got through some nasty waves over the last two years. We will get through this if we follow some careful, sensible instructions and not look at who to blame.”

The health system is being pushed close to breaking point after another surge in Covid cases. Emergency physician @SParnis tells us more. #TheProjectTVpic.twitter.com/miFdkvcBaO

— The Project (@theprojecttv) January 4, 2022

When asked what he’d say to the Prime Minister if he had him sat down, Dr Parnis responded by calling for free rapid antigens for anybody who needs it, suggesting the poorest will be hit hardest at scale if demand and price for tests continue to rise.

It comes as both Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet implored people without symptoms to refrain from clogging up testing lines at clinics searching for PCR tests.

“Let's stop playing games with the issue over cost for rapid antigen testing. If we continue with this nonsense that people need to pay to get access to these RAT tests then we're going to see a disproportionate number of people get sick in the suburbs that have low socio economic status and that's the last thing we want in Australia.

“We've not run the pandemic in that way at any time in the last two years and we shouldn't be starting on it now.”

On Monday, Mr Morrison said we have got to the point in the pandemic where “we cannot just make everything free”.

“We already make them free to everyone who is required to have one,” Mr Morrison told Sunrise on Monday.

“We are now at this stage of the pandemic we just cannot make everything free because when someone tells you they will make something free, someone will always pay for it, and it is going to be you.”

At the time of writing, RATs are only free if you’re a close contact, have symptoms, or work in aged care or state government health settings.

The tests cost roughly $50 for a pack of five or $25 for a pack of two.

Originally published as Scott Morrison cops flak from Dr Stephen Parnis on The Project over Australia’s RAT race