James O’Doherty: Residents who locked down hardest will be last to see restrictions eased

Residents of hotspot LGAs have been doing the heavy lifting in boosting NSW’s Covid vaccination rates, but they’ll be last to benefit from the easing of restrictions, writes James O’Doherty.

Even on the day when more than 1000 people tested positive to Covid-19, a proposal to allow some fully vaccinated people to get a haircut was still on the table as a ­reward for NSW reaching its 6 million vaccine doses milestone.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian had promised for weeks that the 6 million jab threshold would bring extra freedoms, a position jarringly at odds with the hundreds of Covid cases overwhelming Western Sydney hospitals.

It got so bad this week that Westmead Hospital went into a “code yellow” emergency, redirecting Covid cases elsewhere because of the ­increasing strain.

Covid patients are now being triaged in an ad hoc unit to ease the pressure on the system.

Sydney is split into two cities when it comes to Covid restrictions. Picture: Terry Pontikos

Amid the spiralling health crisis and more than a million people under curfew, senior ministers admitted that allowing Double Bay residents to get a cut and colour would have been a disaster.

Despite Berejiklian indicating some “personal services” could be ­allowed in September, crisis cabinet kiboshed the prospect of a fully-vaccinated blow-dry.

For weeks Berejiklian suggested certain services would be restored to vaccinated Sydneysiders and failed to hose down speculation that would include hairdressers reopening.

Crisis cabinet saved Berejiklian from a decision that in the mind of one Liberal MP would have been “political suicide”.

Instead, some very minimal freedoms are set to be granted from mid-September.

So why will some rules be relaxed for vaccinated residents, even as daily case numbers climbed into the quadruple digits?

It’s as much about ensuring people stick to the rules as it is about rewarding NSW.

“We have seen some deterioration in some of those (compliance) metrics because people are obviously feeling so tired and frustrated with the length and duration of the restrictions,” chief health officer Kerry Chant admitted on Thursday.

“This is about rewarding the community in a way that is very safe.”

But the cruel reality is that people under the harshest lockdown measures have been granted the most minimal of reprieves.

That’s despite the fact that residents of hotspot areas have been doing the heavy lifting in boosting the state’s vaccination rates.

First-dose vaccination coverage in Blacktown has jumped by more than 11 per cent in a week. In Parramatta, there has been a 10.4 per cent increase.

Provisions allowing households in hotspot LGAs to gather for a picnic — if adults are fully vaccinated — simply restores a freedom these areas enjoyed before August 16, when “recreation” was banned.

Dr Chant acknowledged that many people in communities under the harshest lockdown measures would be left wanting by Thursday’s announcement.

“To be perfectly frank, these steps are baby steps, recognising the serious situation we are in,” she said.

Significantly, half a million residents of western and southwestern Sydney who answered the call to get vaccinated with extra Pfizer doses won’t get any extra freedoms until mid-October. The 500,000 doses ­secured from Poland are being ­administered with a delay of eight weeks between the first and second dose to get as many people as possible their first jab.

Medically, anyone with just one dose is far better off than someone who is completely unvaccinated. But you wouldn’t blame someone whose second dose is two months away for being slightly annoyed at being left out.

Senior government sources admit that easing restrictions on some residents of Sydney but not those under the harshest restrictions is politically problematic. But targeting vaccine doses in west and southwest Sydney should at least start to bring down transmission rates from mid-September.

Until then, cases will continue to increase, perhaps even “way above a thousand cases” each day, Dr Chant warned.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian and chief health officer Kerry Chant just before announcing on Thursday that NSW had recorded 1029 new cases of Covid. Picture: Getty

Almost 700 people were in hospital with Covid on Thursday. That number can only climb significantly.

Yet the Premier has insisted the hospital system still has the capacity to deal with increasing cases.

“We know the system is under pressure, but please know that we’ve quadrupled our capacity,” Berejiklian said, euphemistically suggesting ­people needing medical aid may get help “differently”.

Notably, the Premier this week changed tack at her daily media conferences, opening her ­address with the number of people who were vaccinated the day before, in a bid to shift focus away from what she calls the “emotional roller-­coaster” of case numbers.

Berejiklian’s former Director of Strategy, Ehssan Veiszadeh, believes changing the conversation from cases to vaccination rates was inevitable.

“It’s tough to be having this conversation at 1000 cases a day but it’s an inevitable conversation to have,” he says. Now the Committee for Sydney Deputy CEO, Veiszadeh said he is “pleased” the focus has changed to vaccination rates.

Registered nurse Shalini administers a Covid vaccine at the Australian Sikh Association pop-up clinic in Glenwood, in Western Sydney, on Thursday. Picture: Getty

As part of that focus, further freedoms are being promised when 70 per cent of the population is fully- vaccinated.

No specific details have been provided, but these freedoms will include economic measures, like a staged ­reopening of hospitality.

But any extra freedom will only be for the vaccinated.

“Every industry should start thinking about what life will look like for vaccinated people,” Berejiklian said on Thursday.

The Premier should have been leading these conversations months ago.

Remember that Berejiklian first floated the idea anti-vaxxers could be banned from hospitality venues way back on January 18, in this newspaper.

But in the months since, questions about vaccine “incentives” were dismissed as being too speculative.

In NSW, meaningful work on ­developing capacity to allow vaccinated people into pubs and restaurants has only ramped up over the past month or so. There has as yet been little discussion about what freedoms will be granted to vaccinated people — both by the state and commonwealth governments.

If higher vaccination rates are our only path to freedom, the people doing the hard yards to get us there shouldn’t be left behind.