Editor’s view: We’ve come too far in COVID battle to get it wrong now
Too much is at stake for Australia to squander our herculean effort in containing the COVID-19 pandemic, writes the Editor.
Opinion
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In the raw and alarming early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, we galvanised as a nation and combined to produce one of the more spectacular global responses.
Our health and financial narrative was projected as world-leading and as the United States, Brazil and Europe struggled with wave after wave, we handled the early stages with dexterity and aplomb.
Other than Victoria’s hotel quarantine fiasco, Australians complied with the restrictions and lockdowns, cognisant that if there wasn’t a near perfect response, we’d lose many people to the killer virus.
Queensland’s toll, with about 1500 cases and seven deaths so far, is an outcome as good as anywhere in the world.
While the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, was pilloried for a lack of compassion by denying people the opportunity to attend family funerals and denying healthcare to NSW residents, it was this strict lockdown approach that worked.
She was rewarded with a thumping re-election victory. But in recent weeks, as we begin the painstaking and complex task of rolling out the vaccination program, it seems Australia has taken its eye off the ball.
How can they be doing seven million vaccinations a day in the United States, and we can’t get frontline healthcare workers inoculated? Why is it that the UK has been ravaged by the virus, sending the economy into freefall, yet they are vaccinating hundreds of thousands of people a day?
And while the Morrison Government can rightfully point to its outstanding initial health and fiscal response, the wheels appear to have well and truly fallen off the vaccination program. The reason is that we have been forced to rely on securing vaccine stocks from other countries, with the European Union pointedly refusing to release about 800,000 doses, claiming they were need for their own people.
This highlights the necessity for a country like Australia to not rely on other jurisdictions for our vaccine source, but press ahead with making our own.
That means the University of Queensland vaccination trials – put on hold after trial patients recorded false positive HIV results – must not only be reignited and be brought back on track, but be embraced by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
New research indicates the vaccine’s “clamp technology” is incredibly effective. Surely the setbacks can be overcome.
If they are, the production hub of CSL must be fast-tracked to produce the necessary vaccine vials to safeguard Australia’s population of 25 million.
What is important now is that the Commonwealth and states stop their bickering and get on with the job of protecting the community from this killer virus.
The lack of teamwork on the vaccination rollout – and the subsequent finger pointing – is a national disgrace.
If it’s OK for stadiums, footy fields and schools to be used as vaccination hubs in other countries, surely it’s something we can adopt.
Surely, the military being drafted in to do the hard yards is also a good option. Australia must not squander our herculean effort in containing the virus. We must catch up quickly to the other nations, as international travel now rests solely on the success of our vaccination rollout.
We’ve come too far to get it wrong now.
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