Brett Sutton hits back at anti-lockdown protests as state records 12 new cases
CHO Brett Sutton has criticised the thousands who attended anti-lockdown protests, saying their demands would not lead to freedom but mass Covid cases and deaths.
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Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has criticised today’s protests, tweeting that their demands would not lead to freedom but thousands of cases, deaths and debilitating long-term complications.
In a Saturday night twitter thread, he warned Victorians the pandemic is far from over and the so called ‘freedom’ protestors would not bring back the normal pre-Covid life we all want.
“I love freedom. Who doesn’t love freedom?” he tweeted.
“I want freedom from being amongst the over 4 million official (and likely 10 million actual) COVID deaths globally.”
“And freedom from being amongst the over 13 million current active cases. Or millions of current Long COVID cases.”
“Long COVID doesn’t make you free - debilitating fatigue, ongoing shortness of breath, neurological and psychiatric symptoms for weeks to months.
“We’ve avoided a huge potential burden of illness in Australia but the 30,000 cases we’ve had still represents so much suffering.”
He said Australia’s success - compared to the rest of the world - had made some of the restrictions seem unnecessary.
“When we prevent illness, the argument seems to go that there isn’t really an issue, so why the restrictions?
“New variants could still be catastrophic for much of the world - Australia included.
“They are hugely challenging to manage.”
But he urged Australians to not give up despite the challenges of managing the Delta variant, and pointed to a Lancet study to support his claims.
“Letting infections potentially overwhelm our health system will cause illness and death at an awful scale.
“It also impacts civil liberties and it’s hugely damaging to the economy to have widespread transmission.”
“We can all argue the merits or otherwise of various approaches to managing transmission, but let’s not pretend that ‘marching for freedom’ will actually deliver the precious freedom that we all need and desire.”
DOCKLANDS APARTMENT IN LOCKDOWN, 12 NEW LOCAL CASES
Victoria has recorded 12 new cases in the 24 hours to Saturday.
All 12 cases are linked to the current outbreaks and 10 of those cases were in quarantine during their infectious period.
The two who were not in isolation were active in the community for less than a day.
It brings the total number of cases in Victoria in the 12 days of this outbreak to 159.
There are 10 cases in hospital, three of those in ICU with one on ventilation.
There were 39,846 Covid tests administered on Friday.
Health Minister Martin Foley said it was “an encouraging trend down in case numbers”.
“The number of people moving about in the community when infectious ... is trending down,” he said.
There are currently 22,718 primary close contacts associated with the 159 cases, and more than 400 exposure sites listed.
A Docklands apartment complex has been lockdown after a resident tested positive.
Chief health officer Brett Sutton said there were teams on site on Saturday morning deep cleaning common areas and testing people.
“Residents have all been advised that due to a case of Covid-19 in the Lacrosse building
at 673 Latrobe St, Docklands, they are required to isolate immediately until further notice,” he said.
“Residents will be contacted throughout the day to give them a time to attend a pop-up testing clinic being set up to perform testing for the residents of the building, and after testing residents must continue to self- quarantine until further advice is issued.”
BREAKDOWN OF NEW CASES
• 5 linked to AAMI Park (one is a social contact of a previously identified case who attended the match, four are household contacts of a known case)
• 3 linked to Ms Frankie (one patron who visited on July 15 and two household contacts of a staff member)
• 2 linked to Bunrley apartment complex
• 1 linked to Bacchus Marsh Grammar (a student)
• 1 linked to Young & Jackons (a household contact of a known case)
NORTHERN SUBURBS ON HIGH ALERT
Chief health officer Brett Sutton said a strong wastewater detection had appeared in the Glenroy area.
Residents in the suburbs of Glenroy, Hadfield, Oak Park and Pascoe Vale are urged to get tested.
He said some residents in those areas were believed to have returned from red zones and “the virus may have returned with them”.
NSW GETS 50,000 EXTRA PFIZER DOSES; ASKS VICTORIA FOR MORE
NSW will get an extra 50,000 doses of Pfizer from the federal government, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Michael Kidd told reporters on Saturday.
“The Commonwealth will increase the emergency allocation to NSW of additional doses of Pfizer from 150,000 to 200,000 doses this week,” he said.
Professor Kidd said every additional delivery was another person with “extra protection” against Covid-19.
“Every dose of the vaccine counts,” he said.
It follows calls from NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian for Victoria to hand over some of its Pfizer doses.
Prof Sutton said Victoria was happy to help out where it could but increasing doses now wouldn’t “change anything immediately in NSW.”
“In Victoria we’ve got to balance our own risk,” Prof Sutton said.
Mr Foley said all of Victoria’s vaccine supply had been allocated.
But he said if there was unallocated vaccine in the national stockpile, it “should go to the area of greatest need”.
“I think it’s pretty hard to argue (with the fact) that the area of greatest need is NSW,” he said.
NSW CASE NUMBERS CONTINUE TO SURGE
NSW health authorities have slammed a super spreader event as the state recorded 163 new coronavirus cases on Saturday.
It’s the biggest daily figure since the outbreak started and the third day in a row the state has topped its highest number.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said most of the cases were spreading in households and cited one gathering of family members in Pendle Hill in Sydney’s western suburbs which resulted in 18 cases.
“Don’t intermingle with family members from other households. It will continue to cause massive grief here in Sydney,” he told reporters on Saturday.
“Just, please, stop doing it. Stop – just one group of family members coming together with other family members where they shouldn’t have been and that has accounted for 18 cases.”
LOCKDOWN ON TRACK TO END ON TIME
Meanwhile, Victoria’s stable numbers put the state’s fifth lockdown on track to end as planned on Tuesday.
But a raft of restrictions are expected to remain in place for weeks.
Confidence is growing among senior state government MPs that restrictions will be eased, with the cabinet meeting each day to chart a course out of lockdown.
“I’d say cautious optimism at the moment,” one Minister said on Friday night.
Getting children back to school would be a priority when restrictions ease, which is looking likely to be Tuesday night.
However, government sources said a decision would not be made until early next week given case numbers were a daily proposition.
It comes as chief health officer Brett Sutton on Friday night declared all of NSW an “extreme risk zone”.
The declaration is backdated 14 days and is effective from 9pm on Friday July 9.
Victorians trying to return from NSW will only be able to enter the state with a valid permit or exemption.
If people enter Victoria from an Extreme Risk Zone without an exemption, they will be put on a return flight or placed in 14 days mandatory hotel quarantine.
Exemptions will only be granted in exceptional circumstances.
TIGHT RESTRICTIONS LIKELY TO REMAIN
Mask restrictions are expected to remain in place for some time, as well as caps on private and public gatherings.
Density limits in hospitality venues are expected to remain in force, with the toughest restrictions reserved for sporting venues.
Public health authorities remain seriously concerned about the return of mass crowds to sports precincts and have warned it could be some time before crowds return in any significant number.
The concern has been sparked because of the significant community transmission linked to events at the MCG and AAMI Stadium that plunged Victoria into an unprecedented fifth lockdown.
But Daniel Andrews said on Friday the state was tracking in the right direction with “very encouraging” case numbers.
And the Premier predicted students would return to schools on Wednesday if the lockdown was not extended.
“We’re all working hard to get the rules off,” the Premier said. “It’s very difficult for us on Friday to be able to predict what will happen on Tuesday at midnight, but I would say that the trend is with us.
“The trend is good … these results are very encouraging, they are positive … whether the next few days continue that way, we’ll only know with the passage of time.”
Chief health officer Brett Sutton said Victoria needed to remain “open minded” about what new cases could emerge.
So far all cases have been epidemiologically linked, a key factor to the lockdown finishing as planned. Professor Sutton also flagged the need for emerging cases to have been in quarantine for their full infectious periods.
“That’s what we would ideally aim for,” he said.
As of Friday, 75 per cent of new cases had been in complete isolation and therefore posed no immediate risk to the community.
With Victoria eyeing an end to its lockdown, Mr Andrews called on NSW to introduce a “ring of steel” around Sydney to protect the nation from the growing virus threat.
“Sydney is on fire with this virus and we need a ring of steel put around Sydney,” Mr Andrews said.
“The last thing I want is Victorians to see off this second Delta outbreak only to have further incursions because what’s going on in Sydney is not being contained to Sydney.”
NSW reported 136 new locally acquired cases on Friday, including 53 people who were infectious in the community.
The spike in cases prompted NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian to declare a “national emergency”.
Mr Andrews said it was a national responsibility to “do everything possible to contain where it is now”.
“We will finish up with the whole country locked down if we don’t do this properly,” he said. “They’ve got a very significant challenge.
“Let’s focus on what’s going on in Sydney, let’s focus on not spreading what’s going on in Sydney across the rest of our country.
“We did it last year to protect country Victoria and our country, and the same must occur in relation to Sydney.”
Mr Andrews said a number of strict measures during Victoria’s catastrophic second wave helped drive down case numbers – which peaked at 725 cases on August 5.
He said limiting people to one hour of exercise, a 5km radius, a curfew and a ring of steel were major contributors.
Hundreds of police staffed Victoria’s ring of steel for about four months last year, with checkpoints established on key routes and freeways around the greater Melbourne bubble.
A current ban on Victorians returning home from NSW – without a compassionate exemption – will be reviewed after two weeks.
There was no guarantee it would be lifted, Mr Andrews said, adding it would be based entirely on health advice.
Originally published as Brett Sutton hits back at anti-lockdown protests as state records 12 new cases
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